Birdeye

by Judith Heneghan

Birdeye is a novel which shows us what the hippy dream looks like fifty years on, when the secrets which were masked by free spirit and a determined nonconformism force their way to the surface.

Liv Ferrar is 67 years old and has lived a full life. Her twin daughters, Mary and Rose, are grown, she has survived breast cancer and, in opening her home to strangers over forty years ago, she inadvertently founded the Birdeye Colony which was once a pilgrimage-worthy commune on the hippy trail in upstate New York. The community is now well past its heyday but Liv still holds to its founding principles of a weekly Sharing along with her friends and co-founders Mishti and Sonny, and Rose, whose additional needs mean she has remained dependent on her mother.

Then one late winter’s morning a stranger named Conor appears and that same night Sonny and Mishti make the devastating announcement that they are leaving. When Liv’s oldest daughter flies in from London to persuade Liv and Rose to move back to England with her, Liv resists what others see as the inevitable collapse of Birdeye. Conor seems to offer a life-line to Liv, but who is he really and what are his motives? As the cracks in this once-haven begin to show, long buried secrets are brought to the surface and Liv is forced to reassess the foundations on which she has built her life.

Genres: Fiction

368 pages, Paperback

Published May 15, 2024

Reviews

[Jodi]

DNF @ 58%—Had to abandon it. The story was good and I could see it had the potential to be very good. By this point, however, the tension was really ramping up and most characters were undergoing a good bit of stress (due to the storyline). I tend to get too invested in books, so the stress and tension started getting to me. I don’t handle anxiety well so... time to say Goodbye to Birdeye.😕

[Rebecca · Rating 4 out of 5]

(3.5) The Birdeye Colony is based in a big crumbling house in the Catskills of upstate New York. Liv Ferrars has been the de facto leader for nearly 50 years, since she was a young mother to twins. Now she’s a sixty-seven-year-old breast cancer survivor. To her amazement, her book, The Attentive Heart, still attracts visitors, “bringing their problems, their pain and loneliness, hoping to be mended, made whole.”

One of the ur-plots is “a stranger comes to town,” and that’s how Birdeye opens, with the arrival of a young man named Conor who’s read and admired Liv’s book, and seems to know quite a lot about the place. When Indian American siblings Sonny and Mishti, the only others who have been there almost from the beginning, announce that they’re leaving, it seems Birdeye is doomed. But Liv wonders if Conor can be part of a new generation to take it on.

It’s a bit of a sleepy book, with a touch of suspense as secrets emerge from Birdeye’s past. I was slightly reminded of May Sarton’s Kinds of Love. I most appreciated the character study of Liv and her very different relationships with her daughters, who are approaching fifty: Mary is a capable lawyer in London, while Rose suffered oxygen deprivation at birth and is severely intellectually disabled. Since Liv’s illness, Mary has pressured her to make plans for Rose’s future and, ultimately, her own. The duty of care we bear towards others – blood family; the chosen family of friends and comrades, even pets – arises as a major theme. I’d recommend this to those who love small-town novels.

Originally published on my blog, Bookish Beck.

[Tim Fywell · Rating 5 out of 5]

Birdeye is an utterly compelling read, taking us deep into the landscape of the Catskills and inside the head of its central character, Liv, a 67-year-old Englishwoman who has lived in this corner of America for most of her adult life.
Birdeye is also the name of the retreat that Liv founded and which has sheltered and cared for many outsiders and misfits over time and which is now breaking up as its time and relevance seems to be a thing of the past.
The novel, beautifully written - a mix of literary fiction and psychological thriller - examines how Liv attempts to deal with the fact that the world and the life she has created is breaking apart. Not least when a young stranger, Conor, shows up and asks to stay. Is he her saviour or her nemesis?
Engrossing - and highly recommended. Judith Heneghan is a terrific writer who deserves to be widely read.
Once started, you get sucked into the dangerous, mysterious landscape of this novel, and it won’t let you go.

[Petra · Rating 4 out of 5]

Birdeye is a commune in the Catskills. Owned by 67 yr old breast cancer survivor Liv Ferrars and for forty years has welcomed hundreds of lost-souls, like-minded non-conformists, strangers and sometimes disruptives.
Liv has two adult twin daughters, Rose and Mary. Rose has complicated medical needs and requires constant attention, whilst Mary left Birdeye to become a lawyer in London.
Siblings, Sonny and Mishti have been with Liv since the beginning and have become as central to the commune as Liv.
But when Sonny and Mishti decide to leave after 40 years, the stability of Birdeye is threatened. Secrets from the past fracture the peace of the commune and up-end the lives of all who are still invested in the ideal.
This disintegration coincides with the arrival of Connor, an unreadable stranger who asks too many strange questions and is held in suspicion by Sonny and Mishti. Liv, however, remains open to welcoming him. Is this most recent visitor the final mail in the coffin?
The book is gentle and thoughtfully written. It perfectly charts the fracturing of an ideal when all parties are no longer of the same mind about an initial vision.
Thank you to Netgalley and Salt Publishing for the ARC.

[Emilie Gramén · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.5 ⭐️ loved this. Pulled you in from the beginning - almost hypnotic. Recommended!

[Lesley Bungay · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is not a book to be rushed. The writing is immersive. I felt I was there in the Catskills watching this complex story of found family and friendship unfold. The characters are utterly believable in all their vulnerabilities. It’s always a sign of a great novel for me when I can’t immediately pick up the next book, but need to let the story and the characters settle. It’s like adjusting to the quietness after all the family have gone home after Christmas.

[James Kinsley · Rating 5 out of 5]

An absolute delight. Characters so rich it's hard to credit it as a work of fiction, likewise for the environment it's set in. An air of authenticity that's the mark of a masterpiece, Heneghan has worked wonders.

[Meriel Anderson · Rating 5 out of 5]

Adored this book, now I desperately want to visit the Catskill mountains!

[Carina Lyngroth · Rating 5 out of 5]

While not my usual cup of tea, I fell in love with the book. It's well written and human. Can't recommend it enough

[Sarah Densham · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really enjoyed this book and its unusual location in a remote part of New York State. Very interesting set of characters and the slow reveal of how they are connected was fascinating. Woodstock vibes, sharing evenings, challenges between friends. Great read.

[Niamh · Rating 5 out of 5]

Birdeye was a beauty to read from start to finish. I can’t wait to see what this wonderful author comes up with next

[Liza N · Rating 5 out of 5]

I knew little about the Catskills yet I was transported and invited into the hopefulness of people living differently and Liv's desire to do this.

[Paul Anderson · Rating 5 out of 5]

I loved Birdeye and its deep dive into a tiny American hippy colony living life well beyond its best by date. It’s a rich, absorbing journey that I’m glad I made.

Turning it over in my mind I thought of a saying, I think by Hemingway, that seemed to fit well. Along the lines of “forget trying to change the world, just make it interesting”.

Birdeye certainly does that in spades with a cast of principal and passing characters so finely drawn you feel you’ve known them for years. It’s a good measure of the readability of a book when you feel a bit bereft when you finish it, not yet ready to say goodbye to the characters, invested as you are in the tumble of big and small events that have shaped them.

Birdeye has the air of quiet mystery and intrigue from the get go, when Conor, a very un-hippylike young man from upstate, arrives one day at the Birdeye colony in clean shirt and slacks. He mucks in well with the daily tasks and spirit of the place. The mystery is less whodunnit, more what deep and dark secret does Conor hold.

For some in the colony he’s not to be trusted. For Liv, the co-founder and leader of Birdeye, he’s an unexpected blow-in to be welcomed and treated like anyone else seeking a place of refuge. The author plays this tension to great effect, teasing us with small reveals and slowly peeling back the layers of this enthusiastic but faintly worrying misfit.

The setting in the Catskill mountains north west of New York, is well chosen and beautifully described. In 1969 the area hosted half a million peace, love and rock fans at the Woodstock festival. Now, half a century later, there’s just Birdeye keeping the hippy vibe alive - along with a handful of tourist shops in Woodstock village spinning a buck on nostalgia.

The Catskills feel remote and a bit desolate, forever at the mercy of changing seasons; harsh and unforgiving in the winter, seductive in the spring and summer with wooded hills, trails and streams. A perfect setting for a colony cocooning itself from the outside world.

It gives Judith Heneghan a perfect stage for intimate observation of the goings on and interactions at Birdeye, which, along with pitch perfect dialogue, she excels at.

Dead on for a book that for me is ultimately about how small moments and gestures are telling and important, how impossible it to escape the past, and how life just tumbles forward, unstoppable, like an overflowing stream in spring turning into a gushing destructive torrent. There’s inevitably a mess to clear after, but you feel in the right hands it can be done.

[Thebooktrail · Rating 3 out of 5]

Discover the locations in the novel here



A gentle novel this one. Slow and thoughtful. I had no idea what to expect really but the cover art mesmerized me to the point that I wanted to step inside and find out for myself. This, I found is very much the effect the community of Birdeye has on all who approach it. Like Conor at the start of the novel, I was timid and alone when I approached this, but soon found my feet as the place, the people and the house got under my skin.

The scene setting really is quite something. Those who live here live simply and quiet. They venture out to Woodstock and smaller towns to buy supplies. By the way, I really did look for the store called ‘Hope Springs Eternal’ selling all kinds of nicknacks as I would SO go there. They live off grid, but once you find out why and how they moved here, it brings all kinds of questions to the fore. One of their relatives lives in England and when she comes to stay, there’s an interesting insight into community, what home represents and the bonds that tie us across oceans.

The ideal location for this novel is of course the Catskills – remote enough to be off the beaten track, but close enough to civilisation to offer the basics of life. What moved me was the fact this used to be a thriving commune but now was the home of a few select people, all with their own demons and reasons for clinging to one another. What was once stable and unquestioned, gets turned on its head and as the reader, we watch the fallout with baited breath.

I felt vested in these people, wanting to know more about them. They crept up on me quietly and have left me thinking about them.

It’s a very lyrical and thoughtful novel which every reader will take something different from. A mediation in book form.

[thebookybird · Rating 5 out of 5]

I picked this book up for two reasons, one the cover and second the blurb by Claire Fuller, “evocative, haunting, masterful”. Birdeye is all those things, it reminded me of a Fuller book full of melancholy, complicated relationships and deep seated tensions.

I am the 18th person to review this on Goodreads which is shocking! The prose is sublime and the plot original, however, this is a book that I don’t recommend lightly, there is a small plot point that did have me considering a DNF and I put the book aside to ponder how important this small aspect would affect my experience. I decided the writing was too immersive and mesmerizing and I was invested in what the author was doing so I let it go and I’m happy I did.

Birdeye Colony is a home but also a place of refuge where non conformists have travelled to since the 70s to find peace, healing, and anything else they have been seeking. Liv the founder and owner has had her place open for over 40 years but the days of spirited visitors has come to pass. With just Liv, her special needs daughter Rose, original founders Sonny and Mishti left, Birdeye has become more of a dilapidated reminder of a once rich history, until one day Conor shows up and what follows is a series of events that has each resident grappling with the past and what the future holds for Birdeye.

Captivating start to finish. Each character felt fleshed out while still carrying an air of mystery that compels the reader to keep going. Every omission is held back with purpose and point. The story is tense and carries this ringing anxiety as things unravel.

Heneghan’s writing is quiet but vivid, mastering the ability to stir up emotions and create dynamic conversational topics. This would be an excellent book club pick.

[Karen Mace · Rating 5 out of 5]

I found this to be one of those quietly powerful books! It grabs you with the characters and the setting, and gets under your skin as you follow their story showing their strengths and vunerabilities and beautifully captures what it is to be human.

Liv runs a remote Colony and has done for years. Living off the grid, so to speak, she set up in a remote area not only to help herself, but to help others who find their way to her, all with different reasons for needing space and a change of scenery. And Liv understands the complexity of humans, dealing with issues throughout her life while living with her daughter.

Conor shows up out of nowhere and you're left guessing as to what his reasons are. the more time he spends with Liv and her family, the more insights he gets, and I love the fact that you get to spend time with each character and get to understand them more. there's often an uneasy feeling about the goings on as you try and figure out if they're hiding things from each other and it really strips each character back to basics as there's no distractions on the colony. What are they running from? What is next for them looking forward? All those questions that plague us all, no matter what age we are!

Liv is facing up to her own issues with aging and living so remotely, and the author has done a beautiful job of treating each character sympathetically, even if some do make you mad at times!! A really absorbing read and one I'd highly recommend!!

[Ruth Cruickshank · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is the best book I have read this year. (The best, indeed, for a long time.) I devoured it, and it has remained with me since, at once for its brilliantly-drawn characters, deft plotting and its extraordinary evocation of place. Whereas Heneghan's first (also unmissable) novel Snegurochka explored the challenges of a young expat mother in post-Soviet Kyiv, differently exploring the (in)hospitable, Birdeye travels to the extraordinary Catskill Mountains. In this towering (and sometimes forbidding) natural environment Heneghan situates at the edge of a various supportive, distrustful and bigoted small-town a quietly unravelling alternative community centred around protagonist Liv. Liv is confronted with a series of variably informed and enforced choices including the future of her non-verbal disabled adult daughter who emerges even more vividly than her lawyer sibling. Twists in the tale hit that rare mark of being simultaneously plausible and surprising and strands of love, care trust and inevitable conflict are finely balanced, likewise stalwart, incomer and returner back stories. Heneghan's art is also in raising important, overlooked questions, unobtrusively but with enduring impact including about perceptions of disability and ageing, of family (and found family) responsibility and of ethical choices in matters which transpire to be very much about life and death.

[Andrew · Rating 5 out of 5]

Birdeye is an extraordinary novel. The storyline is is full of unsaid and unspoken threads which come to disturb the 'sharing community' with a strong maternal had guiding it, only to be tied up up in the end and this is a satisfying conclusion. But the most compelling thing is the writing, hypnotic descriptions and detail, vying with strong character tensions (and a cast which reminds us we are all different) make it difficult to put down. I love the way the 'sharing community' often relies on what has remained unsaid to tease out the underlying complexities. And yet too its also a story about Liv as a mother with challenging daughters, whom she loves.

This is a novel which looks into the complexities of the human condition and explores individuality through the lens of a community, totally absorbing and so well written. The ending disappointed but only because it ended and I would like to have kept reading (such is the narrative pull).

[James O’Connor · Rating 5 out of 5]

Happened upon this book on a table in Waterstones. As a big Bob Dylan, Joni Mitchell, Woodstock ‘69 etc fan, I was drawn in by the premise of a deep dive into a commune and the intimacies running through it. I wasn’t entirely sure what to expect, but I loved the prose, the rich characters and the vivid world of Birdeye. It’s a slow burn, but the ending really takes you by surprise (no spoilers).

Would recommend to those interested in reading about the complexities of personal relationships, and of the world of alternative communes. A meeting of hippie culture and the inevitable complications of life, love and the choices that we have to make.

[Alice Fowler · Rating 5 out of 5]

Birdeye by Judith Heneghan builds slowly, then grabs you round the neck. Unusually for current publishing trends, the novel is told from the perspective of a woman well over 60, for whom memories, regrets and responsibilities abound, and for whom the future is uncertain. Heneghan writes with precision and assurance, adeptly capturing nuance and self-doubt. The setting – a commune in the Catskills which, like its main protagonist, has seen better days – lingers in the reader’s mind long after the book is finished.

[Jonathan Cox · Rating 5 out of 5]

A story of motherhood and survival. Set against the backdrop of the beautiful Catskills mountains, Heneghan transports us to Liv’s world as characters trusted and new interplay to attempt to derail everything she has come to rely on. Heneghan writes masterfully, capturing the landscape and entwining her characters inextricably into the past and present of Birdeye.

[Kerry · Rating 5 out of 5]

You'll most likely be drawn to the cover of this novel, which is a work of art in itself, but this is, first and foremost, a beautifully written novel with, often, a hypnotic narrative style. The characters are well-drawn, and the setting is beautifully rendered. What a treat to read another Judith Heneghan novel. Highly recommended.

[Toby Privett · Rating 5 out of 5]

I had a great time reading Birdeye. It's beautifully written and I couldn't put it down.

I loved travelling to the modern-day Catskills and getting a glimpse of the hippie scene and the birth of the Birdeye commune.

I had a couple of `woah that just happened` moments that made it all very human.

A wonderful book. Well worth reading.

[Jo Agrell · Rating 5 out of 5]

Liv is the founder of the Birdeye colony. The commune has fallen out of fashion but there are strong emotional bonds between its remaining occupants. When a newcomer arrives, opinions are split. Judith Heneghan's prose is word perfect, the characters so vividly drawn they feel real. I found myself gripped by the mounting tension and the question of who to trust.

[Georgiana Lopata · Rating 5 out of 5]

what a lovely, brutal community birdeye is.

this is a story of raw emotions and deep, troubled relationships; nostalgia for the past and anxiety about the future; wrestling with change and accepting people for what they are, not what you want them to be. the writing is so rich you get lost in it.

[Louise · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 stars

Started slow, getting to know the characters, the relationships, the location, but then really pulled me in.

Needing to know more, the motivation behind some behaviour.

Mary was the star for me, but each of the characters were interesting.

An enjoyable read.

[Iarina · Rating 4 out of 5]

quite different from what i normally read but i was surprised by how much i liked it. it explores what happens to those hippie retreat, communal living houses once they are past their heyday and everything starts to fall apart.

[Nicole Le Marie · Rating 5 out of 5]

Evocative prose and compelling characterisation. This is a beautiful novel that draws you into the complex world of her characters. She has a wonderful skill for setting place and making the place itself a character in the novel.

[Andrea · Rating 2 out of 5]

I was so excited about this book but was disappointed.
I'm sorry to say that I thought it was boring. I kept waiting for something to happen but it didn't.
After 130 pages I gave up.

[Sheila · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5*