What do you think?
Rate this book
The Book of Dead Birds
Winner of Barbara Kingsolver's Bellwether Prize, an award in support of a literature of social responsibility, The Book of Dead Birds is an intimate portrait of a young woman at a defining moment in her life, who stands at the intersection of two cultures and races. Ava Sing Lo has been accidentally killing her mother's birds since she was a little girl. Now, having just finished her graduate work, Ava leaves her native San Diego for the Salton Sea, where she volunteers to help environmental activists save thousands of birds poisoned by agricultural run-off. Helen, Ava's mother, has been haunted by her past for decades. As a young girl in Korea, Helen was drawn into prostitution on a segregated American army base. Several brutal years passed before a young white American soldier married her and brought her to California. When she gave birth to a black baby, her new husband quickly abandoned her, and she was left to fend for herself and her daughter in a foreign country. With great beauty and lyricism, The Book of Dead Birds captures a young woman's struggle to come to terms with her mother's terrible past while she searches for her own place in the world. This moving mother-daughter story of migration, survival, and reconciliation resonates across cultures and through generations.
256 pages, Hardcover
First published April 29, 2003
14 people are currently reading
643 people want to read
About the author
Gayle Brandeis
23 books188 followersGayle Brandeis is the author, most recently, of Drawing Breath: Essays on Writing, the Body, and Loss (Overcup Press). Earlier books include the memoir The Art of Misdiagnosis (Beacon Press), the novel in poems, Many Restless Concerns (Black Lawrence Press), shortlisted for the Shirley Jackson Award, the poetry collection The Selfless Bliss of the Body (Finishing Line Press), the craft book Fruitflesh: Seeds of Inspiration for Women Who Write (HarperOne) and the novels The Book of Dead Birds (HarperCollins), which won the PEN/Bellwether Prize, Self Storage (Ballantine), Delta Girls (Ballantine), and My Life with the Lincolns (Henry Holt BYR), chosen as a state-wide read in Wisconsin.
Gayle's essays, poetry, and short fiction have been widely published in places such as The Guardian, The New York Times, The Washington Post, O (The Oprah Magazine), The Rumpus, Salon, and more, and have received numerous honors, including the Columbia Journal Nonfiction Award, a Barbara Mandigo Kelly Peace Poetry Award, Notable Essays in Best American Essays 2016, 2019, and 2020, the QPB/Story Magazine Short Story Award and the 2018 Multi Genre Maverick Writer Award. She was named A Writer Who Makes a Difference by The Writer Magazine, and served as Inlandia Literary Laureate from 2012-2014, focusing on bringing writing workshops to underserved communities. Gayle teaches in the low residency MFA programs at Antioch University and University of Nevada, Reno at Lake Tahoe. She currently lives in Highland Park, IL with her husband and youngest child.
Gayle's essays, poetry, and short fiction have been widely published in places such as The Guardian, The New York Times, The Washington Post, O (The Oprah Magazine), The Rumpus, Salon, and more, and have received numerous honors, including the Columbia Journal Nonfiction Award, a Barbara Mandigo Kelly Peace Poetry Award, Notable Essays in Best American Essays 2016, 2019, and 2020, the QPB/Story Magazine Short Story Award and the 2018 Multi Genre Maverick Writer Award. She was named A Writer Who Makes a Difference by The Writer Magazine, and served as Inlandia Literary Laureate from 2012-2014, focusing on bringing writing workshops to underserved communities. Gayle teaches in the low residency MFA programs at Antioch University and University of Nevada, Reno at Lake Tahoe. She currently lives in Highland Park, IL with her husband and youngest child.
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 30 of 109 reviews
March 22, 2008
A half-black/half-Korean 25-year-old virgin struggles to connect with her mother, who became pregnant with her while working as a prostitute on a segregated American military base in Korea.
This is the crux of the Book of Dead Birds by Gayle Brandeis. While it sounds sensationalistic, it isn’t. The book has been hailed by Barbara Kingsolver, Toni Morrison and Maxine Hong Kingston and is an admitted work of fiction. To boot, the author didn’t change her life story to sell more copies of it. She’s neither black nor Korean with no ties to the sex trade. Brandeis was simply inspired to write the novel after watching a documentary on the plight of Korean prostitutes on American military bases.
Unlike the books written by authors who embellish their life stories to garner more press and, thus, more sales, the Book of Dead Birds isn’t filled with graphic details of the sex trade or any other underworld. Because of this, the Korean prostitute character isn’t further exploited.
Overall, the Book of Dead Birds is a quiet, lyrical novel that chooses not to pelt readers with a laundry list of its characters’ sufferings. Instead, the novel rewards readers by exploring the healing process, not only of protagonist Ava Sing Lo but of the birds she aids on the Salton Sea, where thousands of birds died from exposure to agricultural run-off.
Initially, Brandeis said that she felt uncomfortable writing about characters with backgrounds so different from hers. Compare this to writers such as Margaret Seltzer and Nasdijj who were willing to claim membership to ethnic minority groups they didn’t belong to just to capitalize on their appeal. Because the two main characters Brandeis dreamed up simply wouldn’t drift from her consciousness, the author ultimately dove into their tales, choosing to use her imagination, conduct research and consult a wide network of people to craft an authentic narrative.
The Book of Dead Birds went on to win Kingsolver’s Bellwether Prize for Fiction, which supports socially responsible literature. While Gayle Brandeis is certainly not a household name, she’s proof that a quiet tale can be more dignified than the fantastic, grisly ones that seem to be all the rage as of late.
This is the crux of the Book of Dead Birds by Gayle Brandeis. While it sounds sensationalistic, it isn’t. The book has been hailed by Barbara Kingsolver, Toni Morrison and Maxine Hong Kingston and is an admitted work of fiction. To boot, the author didn’t change her life story to sell more copies of it. She’s neither black nor Korean with no ties to the sex trade. Brandeis was simply inspired to write the novel after watching a documentary on the plight of Korean prostitutes on American military bases.
Unlike the books written by authors who embellish their life stories to garner more press and, thus, more sales, the Book of Dead Birds isn’t filled with graphic details of the sex trade or any other underworld. Because of this, the Korean prostitute character isn’t further exploited.
Overall, the Book of Dead Birds is a quiet, lyrical novel that chooses not to pelt readers with a laundry list of its characters’ sufferings. Instead, the novel rewards readers by exploring the healing process, not only of protagonist Ava Sing Lo but of the birds she aids on the Salton Sea, where thousands of birds died from exposure to agricultural run-off.
Initially, Brandeis said that she felt uncomfortable writing about characters with backgrounds so different from hers. Compare this to writers such as Margaret Seltzer and Nasdijj who were willing to claim membership to ethnic minority groups they didn’t belong to just to capitalize on their appeal. Because the two main characters Brandeis dreamed up simply wouldn’t drift from her consciousness, the author ultimately dove into their tales, choosing to use her imagination, conduct research and consult a wide network of people to craft an authentic narrative.
The Book of Dead Birds went on to win Kingsolver’s Bellwether Prize for Fiction, which supports socially responsible literature. While Gayle Brandeis is certainly not a household name, she’s proof that a quiet tale can be more dignified than the fantastic, grisly ones that seem to be all the rage as of late.
September 6, 2010
Slightly disappointing. This book started out strong but disintegrated into too many different characters and threads, some of which just seemed pointless. Everything got tied up all nice and neat at the end but it felt a bit forced, and too "touchy-feely" for my personal taste. I would have liked to read more about Hye-Yang's life in America after she gave birth to Ava and was abandoned by her husband but that was barely touched on even though that life is clearly what made Ava such a sad, dysfunctional person. It frankly felt like the author just got bored at the end and rushed through to the finish. The writing is beautiful and absorbing, which is what saved the book from a mere "2 stars" rating.
July 20, 2008
What is good about this novel is very good indeed. Mostly good prose (I'm not going to join in the chorus calling it 'lyrical'), delivering a story that moves across a generation (panning from a daughter's story to her mother's) with a notably brisk pace. Scenes from Korean islands, G.I. brothels, and contemporary southern California are rendered vividly.
Ava Sing Lo is the black-skinned daughter of a Korean woman who is fascinated by birds; the daughter has an uncanny knack for bringing about the death of these birds. The daughter finds herself seeking out a devastated coastal area where a botulism outbreak is causing a massive "die-off" in the local bird population, helping volunteer efforts to rescue and rehabilitate as many as birds as possible. This becomes a tale of healing for herself and for her mother, whose story unfolds during the course of the novel (in a different typeface, for some reason).
The principal characters are for the most part multi-dimensional and interesting. The occasional visits by the police are a bit tin-pan alley and cartoonish, and the white G.I. who loved Ava's mother supposedly lost his heart while watching her vomit on the street. "The white puke of an angel," he calls it. Silly silly silly (and really gross).
Still, it is worth spending a little time with Miss Ava Sing Lo and her remarkable mother.
Ava Sing Lo is the black-skinned daughter of a Korean woman who is fascinated by birds; the daughter has an uncanny knack for bringing about the death of these birds. The daughter finds herself seeking out a devastated coastal area where a botulism outbreak is causing a massive "die-off" in the local bird population, helping volunteer efforts to rescue and rehabilitate as many as birds as possible. This becomes a tale of healing for herself and for her mother, whose story unfolds during the course of the novel (in a different typeface, for some reason).
The principal characters are for the most part multi-dimensional and interesting. The occasional visits by the police are a bit tin-pan alley and cartoonish, and the white G.I. who loved Ava's mother supposedly lost his heart while watching her vomit on the street. "The white puke of an angel," he calls it. Silly silly silly (and really gross).
Still, it is worth spending a little time with Miss Ava Sing Lo and her remarkable mother.
March 3, 2009
I'm on the fence about this book. I loved parts of it - the vivid imagery, the protagonist's frequent accidental killing of birds and her mother's ritualistic journaling thereof, the way her mother is hard, whimsical, pragmatic, and opaque. I disliked the way I felt Brandeis polarized sexuality: the mother's traumatic experiences as a prostitute and the daughter's frigid virginity. I also felt the romance was very formulaic. Nonetheless, I really enjoyed reading this.
December 24, 2023
Fuimos a una librería de segunda mano y Paco eligió este libro para mí. Ha sido una experiencia muy chula, aunque también bastante dura de leer en algunas partes. Me hubiese gustado leer más sobre la historia de Helen, de hecho, me he pasado todo el rato deseando que llegaran los capítulos sobre ella.
January 19, 2021
Ava Sing Lo, half Korean and half Black, leaves her San Diego home where she lived with her mother, to assist environmentalists working to save birds from the polluted Salton Sea. It's a complex story with a hint of humor. The book won Barbara Kingsolver's Bellwether Prize.
Read
February 28, 2017Interesting mother/daughter story.
March 28, 2013
The Book of Dead Birds is a haunting tale filled with images that linger and echo through your mind for days to follow. A Korean/African American woman explores her uncomfortable heritage, searches for her place is a wild world full of environmental destruction, and strives to heal the wounds of her mother's past that have left their imprints in her own young body. Ava Sing Lo is an awkwardly charming heroine who travels to the Salton Sea to care for the dying birds as a way of healing the issues between her mother, herself, and a history of strife that spans generations and continents. Brandeis has crafted an uncomfortable, but riveting tale. It explores issues of sexual exploitation, race tensions, and environmental destruction from intimate perspectives, leaving you without a choice but to ruminate on them for days. I recommend this book to anyone who believes, as I do, that fiction should awaken us to our own world, bringing us home to ourselves and challenging us to strive, with every breath, for a more just and humane world. (Winner of the Bellwether Prize for Fiction, founded by Barbara Kingsolver)
March 6, 2009
Winner of the 2002 Bellwether Prize for fiction of social responsibility this is a lyrical, edgy little book, angular, imaginative and pure. A young San Diego woman volunteers with environmental activists rescuing birds poisoned by agricultural run-off at the Salton Sea in southern California. Ava Sing Lo's coming of age as well as her Korean mother's story of being forced into prostitution on a US military base in Korea during the 60s and her subsequent immigration to the US, unfold episodically in a well crafted work raising issues of environmental responsibility, immigration, race, ethnicity and personal development. Multilayered, resonant with imagery of birds, life and death this book is a fragile thing of poignant and thoughtprovoking beauty.
April 30, 2009
Loved this book! I love birds and already knew about the Salton Sea so the setting and title intrigued me. I truly enjoyed the framing of the chapters with Omma's entries in her book of dead birds. Some of them just made me laugh at poor Ava's misfortunes with her mother's birds and others made me cry for the lonely and difficult lives of both Omma and Ava. As the story unfolds, Ava's bird dreams are added to the journal entries marking changes of chapters and storylines. Winner of the Bellwhether prize and deservedly so. Beautifully written.
June 10, 2020
rating: 3.5
I don't usually round up my ratings, but this started at a 3 and ended as a 4, so I gave it the benefit of my wavering.
This had to have been tough to write. There are multiple storylines, and a couple points of view, but Brandeis managed to juggle them all.
I picked up this book, not because of the title (Dead Birds!), but because it had won the Bellwether Prize which was founded by Barbara Kingsolver for "socially engaged" fiction. I now know much more about the Salton Sea and I was given a glimpse of the seedy side of war. (The U.S. allowed this to happen!)
I don't usually round up my ratings, but this started at a 3 and ended as a 4, so I gave it the benefit of my wavering.
This had to have been tough to write. There are multiple storylines, and a couple points of view, but Brandeis managed to juggle them all.
I picked up this book, not because of the title (Dead Birds!), but because it had won the Bellwether Prize which was founded by Barbara Kingsolver for "socially engaged" fiction. I now know much more about the Salton Sea and I was given a glimpse of the seedy side of war. (The U.S. allowed this to happen!)
November 6, 2018
This book was not great. The story was actually really interesting, but I found the execution clumsy to the point of mild frustration. "The sea glittered like root beer..." What kind of root beer are YOU drinking?
*sigh* Not bad enough to drop, but nearly. Such a cool idea for plot and characters...
*sigh* Not bad enough to drop, but nearly. Such a cool idea for plot and characters...
March 18, 2009
First novel by Gayle Brandeis. Recommended by Barbara Kingsolver on her website. Extraordinary story of young Korean/Black woman learning her mother's history while trying to figure out her own place in the world. I couldn't put it down, read it in one sitting.
July 16, 2014
Lovely and sad and hopeful, and all those literary novel adjectives.
Library copy.
Library copy.
July 19, 2020
This book was fascinating - I couldn't put it down. The intricate intertwining of two seemingly disconnected topics (the prostitution on US army bases in Korea and the environmental issues surrounding the Salton Sea in California) was masterful and both elements were equally engaging. I think this book had a way of touching on extremely relatable experiences, most notably the need to make amends for things we are not wholly sure we are responsible for, but carry with us throughout our lives.
I also deeply admired the respect Brandeis showed to Helen and how she dealt with her past. The way it tormented her was subtle and the way it skewed her ability to physically bond with her child was heartbreaking because it wasn't overdone. The transference of the pain that stretches through generations was, I thought, aptly relayed. I understand what a massive undertaking it was for Brandeis to tell Helen's story in a way that would be considered authentic, validating, and compassionate.
These are stories that still struggle to find an audience or authorship in the modern world and I am grateful to Brandeis for educating herself on these subjects so she could relay them to us so beautifully and in such a way that we are able to come away with more knowledge, as well as having experienced the elegance of her writing.
I also deeply admired the respect Brandeis showed to Helen and how she dealt with her past. The way it tormented her was subtle and the way it skewed her ability to physically bond with her child was heartbreaking because it wasn't overdone. The transference of the pain that stretches through generations was, I thought, aptly relayed. I understand what a massive undertaking it was for Brandeis to tell Helen's story in a way that would be considered authentic, validating, and compassionate.
These are stories that still struggle to find an audience or authorship in the modern world and I am grateful to Brandeis for educating herself on these subjects so she could relay them to us so beautifully and in such a way that we are able to come away with more knowledge, as well as having experienced the elegance of her writing.
September 18, 2019
An interesting story of a young lady coming to grips with her mother's story. Ava Sing Lo has been accidentally killing her mother's birds since she was little. Her mother keeps a book with all the descriptions of what happened plus a feather from the bird. To counteract that, Ava decides to go to the Salton Sea to help with the pelicans who are dying from being poisoned there. It is a delicate story of Ava's struggle to understand her mother's terrible past while she tries to figure out where she belongs in this world.
September 17, 2017
This book manages to fulfill two things that I find all good books should have: a very vivid writing style that evokes a sense of place and good character development. I love the relationship between the daughter and her mother. It was a great book about how to get through the pain that your parents went through and in some cases, then inflicted on you. Highly recommend this book!
February 24, 2023
Was actually pleasantly surprised by this book. While I started it with almost zero interest, it had a way of pulling me in and keeping me there. It was hard to read at times due to some of the content but it was overall a good book. Glad I decided to keep it and that it ended up being chosen for me by a random number generator.
May 13, 2023
What I liked about the book: the metaphorical use of birds to discribe the mother/daugther relationship of the characters in the novel. Beautifully written in a lyrical and poetic sense, it allowed the readers to connect with the two main characters and help you to understand why they interacted with each other the way the did.
December 2, 2016
I love birds; I have a special thing for pelicans; I love mother/daughter narratives. In Brandeis' skilled hands, this book touched a nerve and my heart. Ava goes off to rescue pelicans and her mother follows along, ultimately rescuing her.
June 21, 2017
A strange title but another winner of the Bellwether fiction awards
I love birds so I wanted to read this. The book is about saving a group of pelicans but it's also a love story , it's also the story of family secrets, and most of all friendships.
Easy read, I loved the characters.
I love birds so I wanted to read this. The book is about saving a group of pelicans but it's also a love story , it's also the story of family secrets, and most of all friendships.
Easy read, I loved the characters.
April 22, 2018
I can't say I enjoyed this book, because sexual abuse is an upsetting subject. That said, I couldn't put it down. What happened? I just had to see how everything was going to be. Good writing like I found here just pulls you in and you need to know where it will take you.
February 13, 2019
I don’t really know what to say about this book. It was kind of all over the place for me and didn’t really hit any of the right notes for me emotionally. It wasn’t terrible by any means, but I felt like there was something missing that I couldn’t quite put my finger on.
January 21, 2020
A very good first novel. It explores mother/daughter relations, race, and some environmental topics. I have a little difficulty that Ava who had gotten two degrees and lived away from her mother had not yet resolved her handed-down sexual trauma.
March 13, 2020
Clearly a first novel, but a good one. I think it is interesting that the author chose a main character with a cultural background so removed from her own. This novel deals with themes of ecology, family, belonging, and coming of age.
March 24, 2020
I mean, I read it in a day so it wasn’t horrible, but the mood was dark. It felt heavy. I love thrillers/mystery/true crime, but this author knows how to write to set the tone. It just wasn’t for me. I can see how people absolutely love it, and I know a few I’d recommend it to.
July 21, 2021
An unusual book, both sad and very funny. I found it extremely well written, using language beautifully to move me. It details the strains and stresses between mother and daughter and their growing understanding of each other.
July 21, 2023
The writing was beautiful and very visual, but took on a bit too much. It was like the author was trying to work in every issue she knew anything about into the story. Overall, I would still recommend it.
August 18, 2024
I just finished putting up 2" x 2" spaced 1/4" markers on all of the windows (and there are many) because I cannot bear the bird strikes.
A book with so may dead birds was painful for me.
The deeper meaning of the book might have eluded me, but it was a decent story.
A book with so may dead birds was painful for me.
The deeper meaning of the book might have eluded me, but it was a decent story.
July 18, 2018
Failed to impress me. A nice literary work with plenty of symbolism, but the story was not captivating.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 109 reviews