The Bird Skinner

by Alice Greenway

Alice Greenway launched into the literary world with White Ghost Girls—a haunting and sensuous debut about two sisters tumbling into their teenage years in Hong Kong in the late 1960’s—which won the Los Angeles Times First Novel award and was heralded by critics from the New York Times Book Review to Vogue to Isabel Allende, who wrote that it was "written with the craft and grace of a master."

In her exquisitely rendered new novel, Greenway tells the story of Jim Carroway, a World War II Vietnam Vet once called Jungle Jim, who has moved to a tiny island in Maine to seclude himself from his former life. It is 1974 and all Jim wants is to be alone, to drink, nurse his amputated leg and write an article on where he believes Robert Louis Stevenson’s real Treasure Island is. Once Jim was a noted ornithologist collecting and skinning birds as specimens he sent back to the Museum of Natural History in New York where he worked. Since his amputation, his lifelong work has become impossible. Now hiding out on Fox Island, away from his adult son and grandchildren in Connecticut and his colleagues in New York, he is depressed and in pain.

Jim’s slowly deteriorating mind unravels memories that take him back to the war in Guadalcanal, where he was with Naval Intelligence, spying on the Japanese for Admiral Halsey on a remote Solomon Island. There he became friends with a young native, Tosca, who taught him about the islands. Now in Maine, Jim finds out that Tosca, whom he hasn’t heard from in thirty years, is sending his daughter Cadillac to stay with him for a month before she starts Yale on a scholarship. Cadillac arrives to Jim’s consternation, but she is utterly captivating, totally original. She will capture his heart and the heart of everyone she meets.

Rich in island detail, redolent of Maine in the summer and winter, and of the Solomon islands, comprised of lush and poetic prose, The Bird Skinner is a wise, wrenching, exhilarating and unforgettable masterpiece from an extraordinarily skillful novelist.

Genres: Fiction, Historical Fiction, Literary Fiction, War, Nature, Animals, Literature

320 pages, Hardcover

First published August 13, 2013

About the author

Alice Greenway lived the itinerant life of a foreign correspondent's child. She grew up in Hong Kong, Bangkok, and Jerusalem, as well as in the United States. She now lives in Edinburgh with her family.

Reviews

[Barbara · Rating 4 out of 5]

This gem of an historical fiction novel provides an interesting read about bird skinning and World War II in the Pacific islands. The protagonist is an acerbic, angry WWII vet who is also a renowned bird skinner. The novel takes place in the summer of 1973 on an island off the coast of Maine. Jim Carroway is back at his family’s summer cottage to live the rest of his life. In the beginning he admits to himself that he is stuck: he’d been stuck since the war. And being stuck just adds to his frustration…but frustration of what? He just seems to be a cantankerous old man. Deftly telling the story between time periods and places, Greenway provides the reader with Jim’s history. Behind every curmudgeon is a story, and Greenway tells a beautiful story. The catalyst that allows the story of Jim to take place is the unexpected arrival of Cadillac, who is the daughter of his best friend while he was in the war in the Solomon Islands. Because of Cadillac’s presence, Jim reflects upon his life. The story of his life with his wife, Helen, is heartwarming and sad. The story of his survival in the war is horrific. The story of his youth is heart wrenching. Beyond learning about the science of bird skinning, Greenway allows the reader to learn that back in WWII, Doctors were aware of Post Traumatic Stress disorder, which they defined as “psychoneurotics”. There is information on “The Great Japanese Bone Scandal” which is horrifying: an ugly piece of American history that we’ve conveniently forgotten. This is a fabulous historical fiction novel with a great storyline.

[Jill · Rating 3 out of 5]

For any reader who revels in confident, lyrical prose – rich in detail with meticulously chosen words – Alice Greenway’s book will enchant.

The storyline focuses on the elderly and irascible ornithologist Jim Kennoway, who, at the end of his career, retreats to a Maine island after his leg is amputated. There, tortured by past memories and fortified by alcohol and solitude, he eschews the company of others. Yet early on, he receives an unwanted visitor: Cadillac, the daughter of Tosca, who teamed with him as a scout to spy on the Japanese army in the Solomon Islands.

In one sense, the theme is how we evolve and own our memories. In the past, Jim examined how the tongues of different bird species evolved to adapt to different flowers of particular islands. Now he finds himself evolving to circumstances beyond his control: the lack of mobility, the inevitable encroachment of memories and of significant others.

As the book travels back and forth in time – to his youth in the early 1900s, to his stint in Naval Intelligence in the Solomon Islands, to his respected career collecting for the Museum of Natural History, the one constant in his life has always been birding. “Birding, he realizes, offered him both a way to engage with the world and a means to escape it.” Indeed, skinning birds reduces them to their very essence.

So it’s no surprise that even as the book opens, Jim has taken upon himself a quixotic task: to evaluate whether Robert Louis Stevenson’s Treasure Island was really one of the Solomon Islands. And herein lies another theme: the dastardly pirate Long John Silver, in Treasure Island, remarks how alike he is with the novel’s young hero, Jim Hawkins. Good and evil can exist simultaneously in nature and in life…or can it? Can both co-exist in Jim himself?

The book blurb implies that Tosca and his daughter Cadillac will play an integral role of capturing “his heart and that of everyone she meets.” I believe that sets up false expectations. Cadillac is indeed a catalyst to help Jim arrive at some clarity but for this reader, the center focus of the story is always Jim. It’s an intelligent and beautifully written book.

[Connie G · Rating 4 out of 5]

Jim Kennoway, an ornithologist, is a cantankerous old man living by himself on an island off the coast of Maine. His solitude is interrupted by the arrival of the upbeat Cadillac from the Solomon Islands, visiting before she heads off to medical school. She is the daughter of a man who acted as a scout with Jim when he worked in Naval Intelligence in the World War II Pacific.

Jim has recently had his lower leg amputated. His hard drinking and smoking are not helping his health situation. The arrival of Cadillac brings back memories that Jim would rather keep buried, times when he failed important people in his life. But good memories also surface since Jim loved the study of ornithology. "Birding, he realizes, offered him both a way to engage with the world and a means to escape it." Jim is spending his summer writing an article about the location, flora, and fauna in Robert Louis Stevenson's "Treasure Island" whose protagonist, Long John Silver, also had a leg amputated.

The book is a portrait of a flawed, damaged man set mainly on Fox Island in Maine in 1973, and on the Solomon Islands when he was spying on the Japanese thirty years earlier. Other parts of his story also occur on islands or near the water--Manhattan in NY, Greenwich in CT, and Cumberland Island in GA. The descriptions of the areas, especially the birds, are beautiful. The author writes with very poetic prose and sensitivity. Sometimes the flow of the story is disturbed since it flashes back so often to the past. The short chapters are labeled well with the location and date of the flashbacks, but it was a distraction having the story move around so frequently. The author's grandfather, an ornithologist who served in the Pacific working in Naval Intelligence, was the inspiration for this book.

[Emily Kestrel · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Bird Skinner is a novel about a man at the end of his life, when regrets and limitations have begun to take over his days. Jim Carroway, the protagonist, was an ornithologist who collected specimens (by shooting and skinning them), worked at a natural history museum, and served as a Naval officer in the South Pacific during World War II. After losing a leg to a bad infection, he has holed up at his family's summer home in Maine, spending his days smoking, drinking and feeling crabby. Even his good deeds seem determined to come back to haunt him: his solitude is disrupted by the arrival of Cadillac, the daughter of a friend he made in the Solomon Islands during the war.

The novel is exquisitely written, with a strong sense of place (the beach in Maine, the jungles of Micronesia) and an affinity for nature. (The well-done bird illustrations are also a plus.) I also give it high marks for realism. The character of Jim Carroway, especially, was 100% believable, so similar to people I've actually known who fought in the Pacific, and never really got their lives together afterwards, that the portrayal was almost uncanny.

My only criticism was that the narration seemed a bit disjointed, jumping from one point of view or place in time to another, mostly told in the present tense. Maybe because the story swung back and forth from the 1940s to the 1970s, the author's choice of tense made me tense as a reader (sorry, I couldn't resist). Other than that, I was quite impressed by this novel.

**I received a free ARC of this novel as a First Reads Giveaway. My opinion, as always, is 100% my own.

[Elizabeth☮ · Rating 4 out of 5]

This story takes place on various islands: the islands off the east coast; islands off the coast of Georgia; and the islands of the Pacific.

Jim is an ornithologist. He works for the Museum of Natural History until Pearl Harbor. He then joins the Navy to fight the enemy. While he is stationed as a lookout on a lonely island, he collects samples of birds for the museum. A local native, Tosca, a teenager, joins him on the island. The two become friends and Tosca learns everything Jim has to show him about birds and collecting samples.

Fast forward thirty years. Tosca's daughter, Cadillac, is coming to stay with Jim for the summer until she matriculates to Yale to become a doctor. Jim is a loner, and keeps to himself now. His past haunts him, but Cadillac isn't aware of this until she arrives. Jim is an alcoholic and depressed. He is surly and unloving and Cadillac dredges up the past in a way for which he is unprepared.

This story moves fluidly between past and present (present is 1973). The stories are interwoven in a way that is believable and we come to understand why Jim has surrendered to his demons.

This also gives information about birds found only on specific islands in the Pacific and that is interesting and relevant to the storyline.

[Rebecca · Rating 5 out of 5]

The Solomon Islands meets coastal Maine in this intricate novel about an aging ornithologist’s problematic past. The novel’s rich historical tapestry is constructed through many layers of flashbacks, from Jim’s carefree island childhood in 1913 to his war service in 1943. Greenway has a masterful grasp of the six decades that make up her tale, such that she shifts seamlessly between time periods without ever losing the reader’s attention.

(An excerpt of my full review is available to non-subscribers at BookBrowse.)

[Judy · Rating 5 out of 5]

I might never have heard of Alice Greenway if it weren't for my practice of being in multiple reading groups. The leader of one of those groups brought Ms Greenway in to do a reading from her first book, White Ghost Girls, in 2006. I immediately bought and read the book and had that wonderful feeling I get when I find a new author to love.

I've had to wait eight years for the second novel, probably worth the wait, because there is not a shred of sophomore slump in The Bird Skinner. While the first novel was essentially about teenage sisters, this one is about an old broken curmudgeon at the end of his life.

Alice Greenway is a tragedian of the first order. She sees into the minutely individual ways a human being can suffer. It takes an old soul to understand that to live is to suffer, a Buddhist concept, as well as to comprehend that a person may come to terms with loss and with his own shortcomings but not necessarily recover from them.

Jim Carroway has suffered great losses in every decade of his life while also following his consuming passion for ornithology whenever his life permitted, even at times when he should have been taking more care with that life. His most recent loss is the leg that has been amputated, for what reason we never learn. He retreats to the family house on an island off the coast of Maine where he spent summers as a child, determined to drink and smoke himself to death.

Sounds awful, I know. And it is. The novel is a study of a man whose life-changing incidents all left him with post-traumatic stress; serial PTSD. If he hadn't been the tough and nasty character he became, he would never have survived for as long as he did.

When it came to studying birds, he was fearless, ultra competent, and driven. A Darwin. An Edward O Wilson. When it came to human interaction he was found lacking.

Because the novel follows the form of a person looking back over his life, the whole story comes to light in the patchy, uneven way that memory works. Every scene of suffering is leavened with exquisite writing about the natural world as well as the moments of grace Jim finds. The reader is made to care about this most graceless of men and to hope for his recovery.

The wonder is that even as various fine people come to Jim on his island and help him in various ways, even as he seems to find his soul again, even as we are seduced into hope, the author keeps from us what will come about in the end, though she has Jim telling us all along where he is headed.

I have a little pile of books called "How did she/he do it?" Books I will reread or have reread to discover the answer. This one goes on that pile.

[Amy · Rating 1 out of 5]

What can I say? I am surprised at how high everyone else rated this book so maybe my thoughts are totally out in left field but I didnt enjoy this book AT ALL.

The characters were poorly introduced and I felt like maybe this was a follow up book and perhaps I should stop reading and buy the first book to become better acquainted with the characters, but no... this is a stand alone novel. Character names are thrown out at random and it's hard to decipher who's who or what significance they have to the story or the lead character.

The lead character, Jim, is somewhat of a bore to me too. I get it, hes had a tough life but hes a grouchie old man and I got a little tired of the phrase "Jesus Christ" being thrown out multiple times within the miniture chapters.

The miniture chapters... blah... one minute we are in present setting and the very next we are throw back to the 70's, in another country, another state, whatever. Sometimes these changes of track arent even separated by a page break... literally one paragraph to the next. The story jumps all around with random characters just thrown into the mix and an over abundance of bird lingo that I am simply not interested in at all.

In the first 100 pages of the book, I can basically tell you that Jim is a grouchie old sod who becomes the summer host of a young medical student named Cadillac. Jim relfects on his days of wartime and bird hunting and wallows in self pity over the loss of his leg which wasnt even a war injury, it was due to vascular disease. If the first 1/3 of the book didnt catch my interest... I cant see myself going any further.

Disappointed because the other reviews raved of the author's lyrical prose and story telling abilities... I have to wonder if I am reading the same book.

[Constantine · Rating 5 out of 5]

Now and again, sadly far too seldom, you discover a literary marvel. And this is one. A haunting story of a man’s terrifying memories overlaid with the fascinating and meticulous practice of bird skinning. The layers and atmospheric richness of the book delivered in a deeply moving narrative, its complex structure and unusual and yet relatable characters make this a classic.

[Beverly · Rating 4 out of 5]

Cantankerous ornithologist Jim Kennoway whose leg was recently amputated retreats to an island off the coast of Maine and just wants to be left alone. Instinctively the reader knows there is much more to Jim’s orneriness than meets the eye as the elegiac language is often betrayed by restrained humanity. In this story, it is the arrival of Cadillac, the daughter of the Melanesian man who scouted with Jim during WWII, on her way to Yale to study medicine that allows the floodgates of Jim’s memories to encroach into ours.
The well-layered flashbacks provide the details, and the spellbinding poetic language provides the muted emotions, taut suspense, and pending release in a heartfelt manner. But the brilliance of this tale was the evocation of place and time whether is it was WWII ravaged Solomon Islands, sultry pristine Cumberland Island at the turning of the twentieth century, present day Fox Island off the Maine coast or the competitive academic world of Manhattan.
This hauntingly moving tale held my attention from the first page and dared me every time I thought to put it down before the final page. Needless to say I stayed up late into the night to finish. This was my first read by the author and look forward to reading more of her work. I recommend to readers who like stories regarding owning memories, life expectations, and acceptance.

[nomadreader (Carrie D-L) · Rating 3 out of 5]

My thoughts: I knew very little about this novel when I began reading. I picked up a copy at ALA in June because of the praise for Greenway's first novel, White Ghost Girls. At first, I was enchanted with Greenway's prose, characters, and setting. I was curious how the storylines would connect and what would be revealed about the past to impact my understanding of the novel's present. Greenway did bring everything together, but the more I read, the more unsatisfied I was as a reader. Admittedly, this novel requires some patience from the reader, which is somewhat of a feat in 320 pages, and I enjoyed it most when I read longer passages in a single sitting. While there was much I liked about this novel, it's execution fell rather flat for me. I turned the last page with a sense of relief and ambivalence, but Greenway's prose was strong enough that I will absolutely read her next novel, even as this one left be unsatisfied.

The verdict: As much as I enjoyed Greenway's prose and character descriptions, I found the plot to be too slow and unsatisfying. After a strong set up, I soon found myself bored by the lack of action, and Greenway's writing wasn't enough to keep be as engaged as I was in the novel's early pages.

[Diane · Rating 4 out of 5]

Having no idea what I was getting into when I opened this book, I must say that I was pleasantly surprised. I was a bit skeptical because of the title. Not something I would want to do or witness.

Pg 147-150 was the turning point in this book for me. I just loved this. Her brothers ;) Just as sweet a story as it can be. That's not an indication that the book wasn't good before then. It just means that even if I hadn't cared for the rest, the story in those pages made it worth every word. A lovely, sad, lonely, interesting life the main character lived; personally I would be grumpy too! The writing style made me care about them all and they felt very real to me. Going back and forth in time was well done and darn it, I really like the crotchety old guy. I really felt for him and all he endured. I enjoyed the locations, cultures, peoples and even the birds :) Not so much the Japanese part though. Too sad :(

Recommended. So good. Just a really good, well written story.

I recieved this book from the author/publisher after being selected as a winner in the Goodreads First Reads Giveaway. Thank you! All opinions herein are my own and not influenced by anything other than the content of the book and my honest feelings about it.

[Carolyn · Rating 3 out of 5]

This novel really grabbed me from the first page: clear, imaginative writing and an interesting premise - an old, irascible man with a past involving the study of birds (and skinning them for museum exhibits) and World War Two experiences that need to be explained and understood. Jim's life is thrown into uncertainty when the daughter of a man he befriended in the Solomon Islands during the war arrives in the US to study medicine and comes to stay with him on his island retreat. The novel offers so much of interest, including the fact that some Japanese war dead had their skulls (and heads) sent as curios to the US. Among other questions, the novel asks what is different about skinning birds and skinning human beings. Yet the book didn't quite live up to its early promise for me. Despite her gifts Greenway was not able to sustain the quality of the early writing nor create enough tension or changes of pace as the book drifted to a quiet and inevitable conclusion.

[Katherine · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is one of those books that seems really interesting - the story is different and well-written but somehow leaves you with a sense that something is missing. The main character is an irascible old man, Jim, who has holed himself up on an island in the Penobscot Bay in his childhood home when Cadillac, a young woman from the Solomon Islands on her way to Yale whose father is companion during the War appears. The story jumps back and forth between the war in the pacific, the present, Jim's teenage years on an island off the coast of Georgia, and his companions at the American Museum of Natural History where he was a ornithologist. I would almost like to read it again and see if I can get it all to hang together more.

[wade · Rating 4 out of 5]

A very methodical book that tells the story of a man's life during three periods 1917, 1943 and 1973. The period during 1943 chronicles his experiences during WW2 where he develops his passion to be, you guessed it, a bird skinner - preserving their skins for museum exhibits. The 1973 portion of the books shows him as an elderly man in New England who finds himself hosting the daughter of a man he knew during in war as she is going to attend college. By know he is a surly old man made a little more surly by the loss of a leg. He also has a passion for Papa Hemingway which (spoiler alert) is a good hint about the book's conclusion. A slow moving well written unremarkable book.

[Juneau Public Library]

In this novel, Jim Kennoway, an ornithologist, reflects on his life, both his time in the Pacific Theater during World War II and his life now on a small remote island in Maine. He is haunted by his past, and when he receives a letter from the daughter of the Solomon Islander who helped him during the war, Jim's memories of the birds, the people, the war, and the death roll together quicker and quicker. He desperately needs help coming to terms with his past, but is steadfastly independent. The author has such control over the idiosyncracies of her main character and allows the reader to truly see him, flaws and all.

Recommended by Mary

[Cathy · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book was well-written but it came down to me not liking the main character nor the overall story. Jim, a retired orinthologist, lives on an remote island in Maine and battles with learning to deal with the amputation of his leg, memories of his dead wife and his time served in the Pacific war. He drinks too much and he's rude to everyone who tries to help him. He receives an unexpected visitor, Cadillac, a young woman from the Solomon Islands, who is the daughter of a man Jim befriended when he was stationed in the Solomon Islands. The story evolves slowly as Jim has flashbacks over the decades of his life. Hard to get through.

[Donna · Rating 5 out of 5]

GREENWAY IS a wordsmith. I smiled throughout the story being so intrigued and exceptionally taken with the masterful and intellectual ability to write this masterpiece. GREENWAY WROTE WITH SUCH CONVICTION AND PASSION THAT IS LACKING IN 21st century literature. I REVELED IN HER WORDS! An Amuse-Bouche for my soul!

BRAVA! I received this book from GOODREADS' FIRST READS FOR FREE.

Please spoil yourself and read this book I highly recommend It!

[Pam · Rating 5 out of 5]

I loved this book. It was well written, intelligent, taught me things I didn't know and was a unique story.

[Jubilado]

A picture of the Solomon islands and the plight of an amputee. The birds are carrying the story forwards with the young Solomon island woman improving everyone's life. Well written.

[Lorraine · Rating 5 out of 5]

I read it real slow......... I just didn't want it to end.

[Christiane · Rating 3 out of 5]

I felt the same about “The Bird Skinner” as I had felt about “White Ghost Girls”, a potentially 5-star story marred (for me) by the detached writing style and the lack of depth in the secondary characters. Alyse Greenway is very good at evoking atmosphere so the descriptions of the coast of Maine and the Islands in the South Seas were very enjoyable as were the parts about the (living) birds. The war scenes were real and horrendous.

What I am trying to say is that although we’re told a hundred times about Jim’s irascible nature, his lack of social graces, his excessive drinking, his bad parenting, his guilt over his wife's death, his remorse about what he did in the war, his wallowing in self-hatred and self-pity, we learn very little about the other characters. All we know about his wife Helen is that she was lovely and that she died. Fergus, the son, is a highly successful, very sweet-natured, extremely attractive but apparently unattached Wall Street man. Cadillac (that pompous name annoyed me right through the book) is the embodiment of a beautiful, unspoilt, naive, good-hearted child of nature who seems to be totally impervious to Jim’s hostility. Tosca, Jim’s companion in the war, we only know as a 16-year-old Solomon Islands boy, It would have been nice to have been given a deeper look into those personages. Other characters fare worse. Michael, the obituary-man at the museum who is supposed to write an article about the still-living Jim is basically superfluous, his estranged Argentinian wife even more so. Also superfluous is Michael’s infatuation with the Australian curator Laina who in turn is superfluously infatuated with Jim.

I had feared a clichéd ending but it was actually very convincing.

[Sandie · Rating 3 out of 5]

In retirement, Jim Kennoway has retreated to the island home in Maine that has been the family vacation home. Jim was an ornithologist who worked at the Museum of Natural History until he had to have a leg amputated He hasn't adjusted well to that, probably because he is drinking way too much and holds a grudge that it was necessary.

One day a young black woman shows up. This is Cadillac, the daughter of the man who was Jim's scout on the Solomon Islands during World War II. She is heading to Harvard to start her studies in medicine at the end of the summer and her father has sent her to stay with Jim for the summer although they haven't had any communication in years. Befuddled by her presence but feeling the tug of gratitude to her father, Jim agrees to her stay.

As the summer progresses, Jim gets steadily worse while Cadillac forms a friendship with Jim's son. But scandal is brewing. During the war, Jim and Tosca had killed three Japanese soldiers and preserved their heads the same way Jim has always preserved birds. Word of this is about to break as an intern at the museum has uncovered it while searching all files.

Alice Greenway grew up around the world with a father who was a diplomat. This was Greenway's second novel. At times the purpose of the book seems unclear. Is it the story of a lonely man whose life is ending in alcohol and bitterness? Is Cadillac there to be the hope of the future? Is it fair to judge someone by an event that happened long ago and was common at the time or acknowledge that it was a war crime and against the morals we hold? This book is recommended for literary fiction readers.

[SJ · Rating 3 out of 5]

The name and cover art apparently appeals to me. I've picked it off the shelf at the library and read it twice. Clearly, not memorable enough--I never had a sense that I knew how it would go, but read it through to the end each time. It was interesting, but not emotionally engaging, much like the main character. The story reviews the life, from childhood through World War ll and on through 1970ish, of an ornery old cuss and how he got to be self-destructive, emotionally distant and verbally abusive. Very little time is spent on the relationship between him and the young girl who comes to visit as you might expect after reading the fly leaf copy. This is probably why I didn't remember that I'd read it before. The visitor, while charming, is merely a catalyst to spark flash backs and self-reflection, and perhaps a means to highlight the changes in the main character over time. The author protects the reader from caring much about his main character beyond childhood, and strong parallels are drawn between the main character and Hemingway and his protagonists. Not emotionally uplifting, but a good book for book club discussion, especially for baby boomers/children of WW2 vets. I will not read it for a third time....I hope.

[Okcrow · Rating 5 out of 5]

Complicated, moving, and intense.

Greenway takes us through an extraordinary life filled with everyday heroics as well as tragedy and muddled chances. The journey takes us from the privileged background of the genteel wealthy of New England to the bond Jim forges with a young Solomon Islander as a coast watcher after Guadalcanal.The detail of the war years and of Maine add enormous richness to the story. The unlooked for visit by the daughter of his old coast watching partner who has come to the US to study medicine at Yale takes Jim on a trail through his life that none of us can wholly understand. But from her own background she knows the way.

[Gel Keeping · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read this for the book club that I run. Not sure what everyone else will make of it. I loved it. Beautiful writing, lovely descriptions of natural beauty, wildlife, swimming in seas etc. I'm a bit of a birder and loved all the bird talk - pretty sure there will be too much of it for some tastes - although I found the bird skinning description painful. Being an introvert myself, too happy in my own company, and living alone, I could really relate to Jim and became very fond of him. Book club is tonight and I'm dying to have the discussion.

[Mark Thompson · Rating 4 out of 5]

A war novel. A birder's book. A tragedy. Yes, it weaves these together in a very satisfying way to unravel the secrets of a WWII vet and his illustrious ornithological career. Set in Penobscot Bay, Maine and in Solomon Islands, back and forth through time. The richness of description resides in his flower, fauna, and bird sights and sounds. Well worth the read; it holds your attention throughout.

[Linda · Rating 4 out of 5]

Good read. Covering three timeframes of a man's life: childhood; WWII in the Pacific and retirement. Jim is a fascinating character with many secrets, many heartaches and a life broken. As his life story is being relived in is own mind, he sinks deeper into a darkness, which he will not share. At the end of life how does one rectify all the bad choices? And how can one live without allowing self forgiveness?

[Sharon · Rating 5 out of 5]

I read this book way to fast. It should be savoured and thought upon. But, it is also riveting and begs you to read one more chapter.
This is not a mindless read. It is educational and heartbreaking. The atrocities of war and what it does to soldiers and civilians. Mental health and how it affects individuals and families.
Then there are the beautiful and lyrical description of birds and places. All this is tied to his odd fascination with the book Treasure Island.
It’s a must read.

[Jack Bates · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is an excellent book. I'd never heard of Greenway; she's a great writer. There's some beautiful nature writing in here as well as those perennial favourites, the continuing effects of the past on the present; and families and how we make and break them.



I like a book where I can learn things. I learned about the Solomon Islands, the war in the Pacific, and ornithology. Good stuff.