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This is Dani Smith

 

I am Dani Smith, sometimes known around the web as Eglentyne. I am a writer in Texas. I like my beer and my chocolate bitter and my pens pointy.

This blog is one of my hobbies. I also knit, sew, run, parent, cook, eat, read, and procrastinate. I have too many hobbies and don’t sleep enough. Around here I talk about whatever is on my mind, mostly reading and writing, but if you hang out long enough, some knitting is bound to show up.

Thank you for respecting my intellectual property and for promoting the free-flow of information and ideas. If you’re not respecting intellectual property, then you’re stealing. Don’t be a stealer. Steelers are ok sometimes (not all of them), but don’t be a thief.

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    « Gymetiquette, an etymological journey (with bonus fries) | Main | 10 Things: POKE »
    Tuesday
    Apr262011

    ABAW: The Bird Sisters by Rebecca Rasmussen

    The Bird Sisters: A Novel by Rebecca Rasmussen

    Crown Publishers 2011 (library copy)

     

    How do we go on after a tragedy? What if we walked willingly into the tragedy with our eyes open?

    Milly and Twiss are The Bird Sisters, a pair of aging women who live on what’s left of their family farm. They’re called The Bird Sisters because they have a reputation in the town for fixing up broken birds, and the hearts of the people who find them. One day they are confronted with one last bird, and a family that reminds them of the hearts they were unable to fix.

    Scenes of Milly’s day, minding the house, and Twiss’s day, roaming the barn and the field, are intercut with scenes of a fateful summer of their youth. A summer when many things changed.

    The story is populated with an array of memorable characters. The broken father, desperate to overcome his poor background with his prodigal golf swing, who’s non-fatal accident sets the story in motion. The disappointed mother, who gave up her privileged background for love, but was unable to inspire a similar level of care and sacrifice. The priest, who declares his broken faith in dramatic fashion, and inadvertently supports Twiss as he stumbles back toward redemption. The minor characters who each have something to teach and give to the girls. The young girls, Milly, Twiss and their cousin Bett, spending a summer together, laughing and breaking each other’s hearts. Those three remind me of girls I have known. Their cajoling and loving and challenging of each other is depicted with such depth in just a few phrases.

    I was stunned by several scenes in this book, such as when Milly and Twiss meet Bett for the first time and Bett fearlessly puts her hands into a beehive and becomes covered with bees. Rasmussen’s foreshadowing is brilliant in that it helps us see the marching inevitability of what is to come while still managing to surprise us.

    Rasmussen shows how people can go on living, even when they are tangled up in a single moment of their lives. They live and breathe, and yet they are stuck wanting something they cannot have or something they have lost. She also shows us the power of the love of two sisters, and the way their dedication to each other can mend some of the gaps left by their losses. This story is filled with rich details and vivid characters, quietly woven together into a heartbreaking and inspiring story. Rasmussen’s beautiful words created images in my mind that were both modern and sepia-toned, making the noisy quiet of the hazy meadow fill my ears.

    This is Rebecca Rasmussen’s first novel, though I hope it’s not the last. For more information about the author and her work you can follow @thebirdsisters on Twitter or become a fan of “The Bird Sisters” on Facebook.

    Reader Comments (1)

    What a lovely review, Dani. Thank you so much for reading and writing about my book in such a loving way :)

    April 27, 2011 | Unregistered CommenterRebecca Rasmussen

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