BIRD AT MY WINDOW

by Rosa Guy

"What happens to a dream deferred?" asked Langston Hughes. Bird at My Window answers that question with a psychological study of a black man whose aspirations are subverted by his environment. Wade Williams wakes up in a mental hospital and is told he has assaulted his sister. As he retraces his steps during the course of the novel, the rich complexity of mid-twentieth-century Harlem and its problematic relationship to its residents is revealed in this powerful cultural critique. Rosa Guy was born in 1928 in Trinidad, and came to the United States in 1932. The author of fifteen novels and the editor and translator of several volumes, Guy is the founder of the Harlem Writer's Guild. She lives in New York, New York.

Hardcover

First published December 12, 1987

About the author

Rosa Cuthbert Guy (1925-2012) was an American writer.

Born in Trinidad, Rosa Guy moved to the United States with her family at the age of seven, where they settled in New York in 1932. Soon after, her parents, Henry and Audrey Cuthbert, died. After, she and her sister went to many foster homes. She quit school at age fourteen and took a job to help support her family.

During World War II she joined the American Negro Theatre. She studied theatre and writing at the University of New York.

Guy wrote a number of books aimed at young adults. Many of her books reflect on the dependability of family members who love and care for one other. Her works include: Bird at My Window (1966), Children of Longing (1971), The Friends (1973), Ruby (1976), Edith Jackson (1978), The Disappearance (1979), Mirror of Her Own (1981), A Measure of Time (1983), and New Guys Around the Block (1983), Paris, Pee Wee and Big Dog (1984), My Love, My Love, or the Peasant Girl (1985), And I Heard a Bird Sing (1987).

She is divorced from Warner Guy, with whom she had a son, Warner Guy Jr.

Reviews

[Jared · Rating 5 out of 5]

Bird at My Window is a disturbing and psychologically complex novel about Wade, a black man in Harlem struggling with PTSD and other mental health issues. His story is, as the blurb says, one of dreams deferred. Wade is an intelligent man who is beaten down by his environment, including by his own mother. His story demonstrates the hopelessness imbued by racial oppression in an absolutely crushing way. Despite Wade’s actions you continue to hope for him. Guy does an amazing job of leading the reader to sympathize with Wade, slowly unpeeling his past to foreground his humanity and the many sufferings that have made Wade the way he is. The only issue I had with this novel was that it took me a bit to get into, but i feel like the slower beginning was in service of Guy’s slow unraveling of Wade’s life and psyche. I would for sure recommend this novel as an important work of the Black Arts Movement.

[Kristine · Rating 3 out of 5]

Rosa Guy confronts poverty and racism in her first novel, which includes very disturbing subject matter--incest, abuse, violence, murder. She takes on the already-complex problems of poverty, racism, and substance abuse and complicates them even further by tackling the subject from the point of view of a psychologically disturbed man remembering his childhood in mid-20th-century Harlem. Pretty impressive for a first novel. Many elements to discuss.

[Merry · Rating 5 out of 5]

Very thought provoking book about growing up Black in Harlem.

[Andrea · Rating 4 out of 5]

one of the more moving books i've read.

[Michelle · Rating 4 out of 5]

Challenging read, but ultimately worth the effort.

[Justin]

This is the book that got me hooked on reading. A wonderful, personal story about "real" people.It also started my fascination with NYC, which I eventually got to visit in 2009.