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The Life List of Adrian Mandrick
H Is for Hawk meets Grief Is the Thing with Feathers in this evocative debut novel about a pill-popping anesthesiologist and avid birder who embarks on a quest to find one of the world’s rarest species, allowing nothing to get in his way—until he’s forced to confront his obsessions and what they’ve cost him.
Anesthesiologist Adrian Mandrick is filled with contradictory impulses. He wants to be a good husband to his wife and a good father to his children; he wants to forgive his once-beloved mother for the crime she committed and the long lost father who accused her. But when he receives a call from his mother after years of silence, he takes solace in the very pain medication he prescribes, spiraling downward into addiction.
His sole source of true comfort is his “life list”—the all-encompassing record of the 863 bird species he’s spotted and identified. His is the third longest list in all of North America. But when Henry Lassiter, the legendary birder who held the region’s second longest list, dies suddenly, Adrian seizes the opportunity to make his way to the very top. A desperate search for the extremely rare Ivory-billed Woodpecker eventually leaves him stranded in the thick swamplands of Florida’s panhandle, where he is forced to confront his past and present failures, to reflect on what his obsessions and addictions have cost him, and to question what is truly important in his life.
Combining wry humor and mystery with environmental adventure, The Life List of Adrian Mandrick is a fast-paced, engaging story that heralds the arrival of a new literary talent.
Anesthesiologist Adrian Mandrick is filled with contradictory impulses. He wants to be a good husband to his wife and a good father to his children; he wants to forgive his once-beloved mother for the crime she committed and the long lost father who accused her. But when he receives a call from his mother after years of silence, he takes solace in the very pain medication he prescribes, spiraling downward into addiction.
His sole source of true comfort is his “life list”—the all-encompassing record of the 863 bird species he’s spotted and identified. His is the third longest list in all of North America. But when Henry Lassiter, the legendary birder who held the region’s second longest list, dies suddenly, Adrian seizes the opportunity to make his way to the very top. A desperate search for the extremely rare Ivory-billed Woodpecker eventually leaves him stranded in the thick swamplands of Florida’s panhandle, where he is forced to confront his past and present failures, to reflect on what his obsessions and addictions have cost him, and to question what is truly important in his life.
Combining wry humor and mystery with environmental adventure, The Life List of Adrian Mandrick is a fast-paced, engaging story that heralds the arrival of a new literary talent.
275 pages, Hardcover
First published April 17, 2018
21 people are currently reading
1399 people want to read
About the author
Chris White
1 book30 followersChris White is an award-winning playwright and screenwriter, with an MFA in dramatic writing from NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts and BA from the University of Colorado, Boulder. Born in Lompoc, California to a military family, with roots in Northern Kentucky, White has written for theatre, film and music. She is currently a professor of English at DePauw University teaching creative writing, living near the town of Bainbridge, Indiana on Big Walnut Creek. The Life List of Adrian Mandrick is her first novel.
Chris White’s plays have been produced nationally and internationally, and her play, Rhythms, won the Helen Hayes Award for Outstanding New Play. She received an Award of Merit at the Women’s Independent Film Festival for her feature-length screenplay, Weasel in the Icebox, and her short film, Mud Lotus, was an official selection at US film festivals. She also recorded numerous albums as producer, writer, and/or vocalist, with cofounded group Flesh and Bone and others.
Chris White’s plays have been produced nationally and internationally, and her play, Rhythms, won the Helen Hayes Award for Outstanding New Play. She received an Award of Merit at the Women’s Independent Film Festival for her feature-length screenplay, Weasel in the Icebox, and her short film, Mud Lotus, was an official selection at US film festivals. She also recorded numerous albums as producer, writer, and/or vocalist, with cofounded group Flesh and Bone and others.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 107 reviews
March 11, 2025
Mix Don Draper with a competitive birder and you get Adrian Mandrick.
This is definitely not the contemporary novel for you if you prefer to be able to root for your main characters, but the element of the birding world provided an interesting aspect to the book. The author being a playwright predictably made for some good dialogue, too.
Click here to hear more of my thoughts over on my Booktube channel, abookolive!
This is definitely not the contemporary novel for you if you prefer to be able to root for your main characters, but the element of the birding world provided an interesting aspect to the book. The author being a playwright predictably made for some good dialogue, too.
Click here to hear more of my thoughts over on my Booktube channel, abookolive!
April 23, 2018
Thanks to Touchstone for sending me a copy to review!
This was a thoroughly enjoyable, completely fresh read - I mean, who has ever read a novel about birding before? Adrian Mandrick, our main character, is a pill popping anesthesiologist. He's also a life long birder, and holds an impressive life list (number of species he has seen) - the third longest in North America. Lingering in the background are his estranged family and his poignant, painful childhood memories.
All of this is blended together in such a beautiful way - and that's how I think characters become real to us as readers. They're full of contradictions, they don't just have One Great Motivation but lots of small ones, sometimes unconscious ones that they can't quite make sense of. It's also a surprising book, definitely not tied to any genre expectations, because of all these moving parts. You never quite know what's important, so it has that delightful quality of surprise and discovery.
This was a thoroughly enjoyable, completely fresh read - I mean, who has ever read a novel about birding before? Adrian Mandrick, our main character, is a pill popping anesthesiologist. He's also a life long birder, and holds an impressive life list (number of species he has seen) - the third longest in North America. Lingering in the background are his estranged family and his poignant, painful childhood memories.
All of this is blended together in such a beautiful way - and that's how I think characters become real to us as readers. They're full of contradictions, they don't just have One Great Motivation but lots of small ones, sometimes unconscious ones that they can't quite make sense of. It's also a surprising book, definitely not tied to any genre expectations, because of all these moving parts. You never quite know what's important, so it has that delightful quality of surprise and discovery.
April 11, 2019
The Life List of Adrian Mandrick
is about an anesthesiologist with a wife and family who spirals into despair and self-loathing when he discovers his estranged mother has died.
After his parents divorced, his abusive father made a terrible accusation against his mother, a searing allegation of sexual abuse Adrian has never gotten over and has held against his mother until her untimely death.
Not surprisingly, he is not able to come to terms with this horrible claim.
His mother, who he shares a life long affinity for bird watching and as a result, holds the #3 spot for most bird species spotted at nearly 900, he has never reconciled his bird loving mother with the monster his father claims she is.
After he is told of his mother's death, Adrian makes a series of boneheaded decisions that will ruin his life because that's what dicks do.
** Spoilers ahead **
He cheats on his wife. I still have no idea why this suddenly came to him. I know men cheat based on opportunity so let's go with that.
He reverts back to his pill popping days.
He scares his children and acts violently.
Its no surprise that I didn't like Adrian, and not just because he's an adultering asshole.
He's not interesting, witty or a person I want to get to know. He's kind of a schlub, the way the author describes him.
When Adrian has a chance to view a rare bird he may have spotted with his mother when he was a child, he makes the journey on the advice of a fellow bird watcher he met online and comes face to face with his father, who has his own amends to make and a shocking reveal to get off his duplicitous chest.
The revelation Adrian's father suddenly helps Adrian clarify a muddled scene from his childhood and brings it suddenly into focus.
Now, I have no idea why his father telling the truth suddenly helps Adrian realize how wrong he was and what a devious, jealous bastard his father is.
I guess it does bring up the well known fact that our memories are muddled by what we want to remember or forget and tainted easily by the most atrocious of accusations, even though you know it can't be true, a part of you thinks...could it be?
Now Adrian has to live his life knowing he never got to make peace with his mother and he ruined his marriage by being an douche. Way to go, dickhead.
The writing was fine but unlikeable characters or characters never fully developed and set against the backdrop of bird watching did not interest me.
After his parents divorced, his abusive father made a terrible accusation against his mother, a searing allegation of sexual abuse Adrian has never gotten over and has held against his mother until her untimely death.
Not surprisingly, he is not able to come to terms with this horrible claim.
His mother, who he shares a life long affinity for bird watching and as a result, holds the #3 spot for most bird species spotted at nearly 900, he has never reconciled his bird loving mother with the monster his father claims she is.
After he is told of his mother's death, Adrian makes a series of boneheaded decisions that will ruin his life because that's what dicks do.
** Spoilers ahead **
He cheats on his wife. I still have no idea why this suddenly came to him. I know men cheat based on opportunity so let's go with that.
He reverts back to his pill popping days.
He scares his children and acts violently.
Its no surprise that I didn't like Adrian, and not just because he's an adultering asshole.
He's not interesting, witty or a person I want to get to know. He's kind of a schlub, the way the author describes him.
When Adrian has a chance to view a rare bird he may have spotted with his mother when he was a child, he makes the journey on the advice of a fellow bird watcher he met online and comes face to face with his father, who has his own amends to make and a shocking reveal to get off his duplicitous chest.
The revelation Adrian's father suddenly helps Adrian clarify a muddled scene from his childhood and brings it suddenly into focus.
Now, I have no idea why his father telling the truth suddenly helps Adrian realize how wrong he was and what a devious, jealous bastard his father is.
I guess it does bring up the well known fact that our memories are muddled by what we want to remember or forget and tainted easily by the most atrocious of accusations, even though you know it can't be true, a part of you thinks...could it be?
Now Adrian has to live his life knowing he never got to make peace with his mother and he ruined his marriage by being an douche. Way to go, dickhead.
The writing was fine but unlikeable characters or characters never fully developed and set against the backdrop of bird watching did not interest me.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
Read
December 3, 2017Adrian Mandrick is addicted to painkillers, and spotting rare birds. He loves his family, but these two obsessions and unanswered questions from his childhood take Adrian and his family to the brink of destruction.
I read this in a few days, and loved it. It's pacey and the story, as Adrian spirals downwards, kept me turning the pages. But despite galloping through it, I'm certain it will stay with me. The characters are well-drawn, and Adrian's memories of bird-watching with his mother, his wife delivering their second child, and the time he called the police on his father are particularly poignant.
Out in the US in April 2018
I read this in a few days, and loved it. It's pacey and the story, as Adrian spirals downwards, kept me turning the pages. But despite galloping through it, I'm certain it will stay with me. The characters are well-drawn, and Adrian's memories of bird-watching with his mother, his wife delivering their second child, and the time he called the police on his father are particularly poignant.
Out in the US in April 2018
October 2, 2018
Love this book! Such an original story and characters. His writing kept me interested all the way through.
April 28, 2018
I liked this book a lot and the authors style of writing. It is a book about family, addiction, and birding. The main character Adrian, is an anesthesiologist, who loves his family, who is a big time birder trying to find one elusive bird for his list, but who also has a problem with pills.
The story goes between his different relationships, both past and present, his childhood and present day families and how he tries to cope with not only that but with situations that arise to challenge him.
To me it was an interesting mix of scenarios, which made me, want to keep reading.
I will be very interested in this authors next book.
I would like to thank Netgalley and Touchstone for the ARC of this book.
The story goes between his different relationships, both past and present, his childhood and present day families and how he tries to cope with not only that but with situations that arise to challenge him.
To me it was an interesting mix of scenarios, which made me, want to keep reading.
I will be very interested in this authors next book.
I would like to thank Netgalley and Touchstone for the ARC of this book.
August 4, 2018
I'd actually rate this one 3.5, but I'm feeling generous this morning, and I really did enjoy it overall. Chris White is clearly a gifted writer - crisp, vivid, interesting. And I am a birder with a special fondness for woodpeckers, so I was happy to follow Adrian Mandrick along on his quest. Poor Adrian. A shy, anxious boy traumatized by a nasty divorce, he spends his adult life as an anesthesiologist, devoting himself entirely to the avoidance of all pain, both for his patients and for himself, using the wonders of modern chemistry. This eternal search for numbness checks him out of any real connection with his wife, his kids, his family, and leaves him utterly self-absorbed. Only birds can light him up, and even that has become corrupted by a competitive obsession with the (ahem) length of his list. White herself is apparently not a birder, but she has caught the loveliness of the birds themselves and some of the glowing ardor we birders have for them. The chat-group reports from an anonymous novice birder describing his sightings of utterly common birds are charming and touching, and they touch a chord in Adrian too. We trudge along with Adrian as he fumbles and stumbles his way through an ill-advised affair, emotional neglect of his grounded, gifted wife, and a life-threatening illness, to the realization that if a species (plant, animal, bird, or human) cannot adapt to changing circumstances, it is doomed. Towards the end, the plot veers into melodrama territory in a dangerous swamp and the appearance of a mysterious stranger, but the rediscovery of a childhood photograph is truly moving. And it ends on a note of hope... and you know what Emily Dickinson said about hope.
July 11, 2018
Being a grad student I haven't read a new book in a while. But I got to know about this book from one of my birding groups and I was intrigued. It gave me the extra nudge I needed to read the book. Beautifully written, the book talks about a man's life as he goes through drug addiction, denial and an obsession with birding. It subtly talks how much the oil spills, lumber industry etc wreaked havoc on the environment. It is so poignant and yet hopeful in the end. The story of Wilson the artist painting the ivory-billed woodpecker was particularly painful. The way little Adrian reacts to the story and how suffering is seen only when there is something human/human-like attributed to it shows the general lack of empathy we, as a species have. Although the book ends on a hopeful note, it still plunges me into deep anxiety. Who knows how many more birds that are going to become extinct before my time. It makes you wonder how much more time we need to wait around for people in the upper rinks to realize that the situation is dire. Anyways getting back to the book, this is the first novel of Chris White (Female Author). Wonderful job, any birder would love and relate to this book. Having said that, it is, however, not limited to the birder audience. The author weaves the past and the present in a brilliant fashion. The book was very engaging and tender. I found it impossible to put it down.
July 9, 2018
First of all, this is nothing like H is for Hawk except that there are birds in it (I don't remember any hawks, though). But it is incredibly well-written and a compelling story - so much so that I sat down to read it after lunch one day and didn't put it down until I'd finished it 5 hours later.
I was struggling with whether I would recommend it to friends who are birders or not. Birding is a large part of it but almost in a sort of depressing way. Adrian is more like Owen Wilson's character in a Big Year instead of Jack Black's...except even worse to the people he loves or is supposed to love. I thought it was a very interesting look into opioid addiction and a sad look into family's falling apart because no one can talk to each other.
Overall a great read but more for fans of literary fiction and not necessarily for birders.
I was struggling with whether I would recommend it to friends who are birders or not. Birding is a large part of it but almost in a sort of depressing way. Adrian is more like Owen Wilson's character in a Big Year instead of Jack Black's...except even worse to the people he loves or is supposed to love. I thought it was a very interesting look into opioid addiction and a sad look into family's falling apart because no one can talk to each other.
Overall a great read but more for fans of literary fiction and not necessarily for birders.
February 11, 2018
Adrian Mandrick is a successful anesthesiology, husband, father, avid birder, and prescription drug addict. With a life list comprised of 863 bird species, his is the third-longest list in North America, only after legendary Henry Lassiter. Upon learning of his hero's death, Adrian is obsessed to achieve the top spot. This book has so many layers to it; from Adrian's crumbling marriage, to his continuous need to avoid calls from his estranged mother, and to his overwhelming need to self medicate. With a brilliant and stunning conclusion, Chris White has created a haunting tale that will remain embedded long after the reader is finished.
April 29, 2018
It's no secret that hard core birders tend to be obsessive about it. Even my husband, who tends to be accepting of my crazy hobby, once accused me of being addicted to birds.
Adrian Mandrick, the protagonist of this novel, literally is an addict--to painkillers and tranquilizers--as well as being obsessed with birds. He uses both "addictions" to avoid dealing with unresolved issues from his messed up childhood as well as his unsatisfying marriage. Because of our mutual love of birds, I was all ready to root for him, but Adrian is such an unlikable character that I just couldn't. I thought the ending was kind of weird, too.
I was wondering if the author is a birder herself, and decided halfway through that she isn't. (An interview I looked up upon finishing the book confirmed this.) The scene that gave it away was when Adrian flies to Texas on the spur of the moment to chase a mega-rarity, and stops to eat dinner at Red Lobster and then spend the night at a hotel and then goes to look for the bird the next morning. Take it from a birder, that's just not how it's done. You immediately drive to the closest spot to where the bird was seen, eating in the car as you go, so you can be out there before the crack of dawn to get it. Plenty of time to eat and sleep later!
On the whole, I found this book mildly interesting but somewhat depressing. Adrian's mind was such a joyless place to hang out. Because of this, I can't really recommend it, but most other reviewers seemed to like it much more than I did.
Adrian Mandrick, the protagonist of this novel, literally is an addict--to painkillers and tranquilizers--as well as being obsessed with birds. He uses both "addictions" to avoid dealing with unresolved issues from his messed up childhood as well as his unsatisfying marriage. Because of our mutual love of birds, I was all ready to root for him, but Adrian is such an unlikable character that I just couldn't. I thought the ending was kind of weird, too.
I was wondering if the author is a birder herself, and decided halfway through that she isn't. (An interview I looked up upon finishing the book confirmed this.) The scene that gave it away was when Adrian flies to Texas on the spur of the moment to chase a mega-rarity, and stops to eat dinner at Red Lobster and then spend the night at a hotel and then goes to look for the bird the next morning. Take it from a birder, that's just not how it's done. You immediately drive to the closest spot to where the bird was seen, eating in the car as you go, so you can be out there before the crack of dawn to get it. Plenty of time to eat and sleep later!
On the whole, I found this book mildly interesting but somewhat depressing. Adrian's mind was such a joyless place to hang out. Because of this, I can't really recommend it, but most other reviewers seemed to like it much more than I did.
December 18, 2022
After libraries in our area chose “The Life List of Adrian Mandrick” for their all-reads program, I decided to try it for myself. Chris White, a first-time novelist, is a college professor and resident of my home state, Indiana. Adrian Mandrick is a physician with a wife and two children, and he is a serious birder. I really enjoyed learning more about this hobby and how it is like a sport for the die-hards; Adrian's life list of birds is competitive with the best in the country. But, he has been addicted to drugs, and his childhood (and at this point, his adult life as well) was not a happy one. As Adrian follows clues to a swamp where another rare bird has been spotted, the descriptions and the nods to the environment were fascinating. White's story contains so much drama and a few tasty surprises, and I gobbled it up in one day. I went down a few mental dead alleys before the conclusion was revealed. Good choice, Noble County; this will be a book to discuss.
February 8, 2021
There were some interesting vignettes about obsessed birders and the extremes they will go to to add a bird on their list. Also subplots related to anaesthesiology, addiction to painkillers, an anxious, broken protagonist who manages to damage his relationships with his family. It was fun to relive a bit of the drama of ivory billed woodpecker “sightings” back a decade or so ago. Some good commentary on extinction and climate change. But I didn’t relate to Adrian or find him a sympathetic character.
October 10, 2018
I picked this novel up, and 36 hours later I had barely put it down but to sleep. Chris White's prose is magical and distinctive. Though I'm sure this won't be the case, I found myself, as I read the final page, hoping that in some future novel White will return to Adrian a la Updike's Rabbit Angstrom, so I can see how his life continues to unfold.
It's a rich, lived in book whose author has let it be something truly great, cinematic and true. Seek this book out.
It's a rich, lived in book whose author has let it be something truly great, cinematic and true. Seek this book out.
December 5, 2017
This is wild ride involving a pill-popping anesthesiologist who is coming unhinged, a quest for an incredibly rare (and possibly extinct) bird, and the unearthing of long-suppressed family secrets—all rendered in incisive, gorgeous prose by a major new talent, Chris White. Not to mention with an essential theme of conservation at its heart! Read this book!
February 28, 2018
The term “page-turner” gets overused, but in the case of The Life List of Adrian Mandrick it’s extremely appropriate. This is a quick read but I didn’t want it to end. The title character is complex (both loveable and hateable), and the descriptions of Colorado’s mountains and Florida’s swamplands were so vivid I felt like I was there. Can’t recommend this one enough.
December 31, 2019
I met Chris White at at a reading at Second Flight Books, in Lafayette, IN. I work there part time. I bought the book and had her sign it after the reading. She encouraged me to “stick with Adrian” as a character. I’m glad I did stick with him! I enjoyed this book and its descriptive account of Adrian’s birding and his family story both past and present.
March 7, 2018
This beautifully crafted debut novel has so many fascinating aspects—drug addiction, birds, family drama, sloppy adventures into the swamp. White understands story and human failings and brings us a damaged man who finds redemption in the nick of time. Every word matters. Delightful all around!
January 15, 2018
A tremendous study of numbness, birding, and pain with a glancing glimpse of hope.
January 14, 2022
I wanted to finish this book hoping the main character (and the story in general) would have a redemption but I could not stick with it. This book is a mood killer
April 24, 2018
via my blog: https://bookstalkerblog.wordpress.com/
'There are temptations in this world and there are signposts. This, he does believe. The trick is to distinguish between the two.'
How do you distinguish what is true from the wreckage of your childhood memories if you never confront the source of the poison? Adrian Mandrick is a husband, father and anesthesiologist with a pill problem. When he isn’t escaping his trauma with his bird obsession, he is ruining his marriage and collapsing under the weight of his memories. As a young boy, his estranged father slipped a heavy dose of truth into the loving bubble he lived in with his mother. Everything he felt for her is tainted by this sickening crime she committed, and a gulf opens wide between them until he finds himself out of her life. After she attempts to reach out to him, he ignores her calls and sinks deeper into the drugs that comfort him, and his hunt for elusive birds. This isn’t the first time he abused pills to silence the pain in his body and his heart.
Adrian’s list of birds is a lifelong catalogue, with the death of a ‘legendary birder’ he has the chance to be on top and figures finding a rare ivory bill woodpecker will secure his success. Instead he finds himself stuck in the muck of the Florida panhandle, where his past is lurking and everything he thought he knew about his mother and an incident will be upended. His marriage is spiraling into a dark hole, thanks to his addiction and indiscretion with another woman but it’s the past that is the true beast tainting all he holds dear.
No one knows the painful secret he has allowed to fester, most just see a successful man whose obsession with birds is more than just a hobby. His brother thinks he’s arrogant, ‘too good’ for their mother, his wife feels neglected as his all consuming obsession with birds, his disappearing acts leaves her living like a single mother. Conservation seems hopeless for all the species of birds, but it’s his mind and family that need saving. He loves his children, believes they deserve to enjoy the bounty of youth, the careless happiness he himself never had. But it’s getting harder and harder be around them when he is sinking in his screaming thoughts and drug induced fogs. Though Stella attempts to confront him, he has excuses at the ready to brush her off. Then there is the mother he is avoiding, he once loved his mother with all of his being too, ‘She was his mother, his life raft, his home. How can this be turned upside down, flooded, ruined,’ until he couldn’t anymore. How could resentment, anger become so vile as to destroy a child?
How long has Adrian’s emotional absence been brewing? Just how much do we really keep for ourselves, how much can one keep hidden from our loved ones without being swallowed whole, without losing them? How much can we hide from ourselves? He is about to find out. Through birdwatching and drugs Adrian is disappearing, he is tortured by the past and self-medicating as to cease feeling anything at all. It’s interesting to think he haunts himself, that memories from our childhood are easy to muddy in careless hands. It’s hard to make my point without giving away secrets, but the saddest thing of all is that other people can sever bonds between people and change the trajectory of an entire life. How much of the present do we give to the past?
Available Now
Touchstone
'There are temptations in this world and there are signposts. This, he does believe. The trick is to distinguish between the two.'
How do you distinguish what is true from the wreckage of your childhood memories if you never confront the source of the poison? Adrian Mandrick is a husband, father and anesthesiologist with a pill problem. When he isn’t escaping his trauma with his bird obsession, he is ruining his marriage and collapsing under the weight of his memories. As a young boy, his estranged father slipped a heavy dose of truth into the loving bubble he lived in with his mother. Everything he felt for her is tainted by this sickening crime she committed, and a gulf opens wide between them until he finds himself out of her life. After she attempts to reach out to him, he ignores her calls and sinks deeper into the drugs that comfort him, and his hunt for elusive birds. This isn’t the first time he abused pills to silence the pain in his body and his heart.
Adrian’s list of birds is a lifelong catalogue, with the death of a ‘legendary birder’ he has the chance to be on top and figures finding a rare ivory bill woodpecker will secure his success. Instead he finds himself stuck in the muck of the Florida panhandle, where his past is lurking and everything he thought he knew about his mother and an incident will be upended. His marriage is spiraling into a dark hole, thanks to his addiction and indiscretion with another woman but it’s the past that is the true beast tainting all he holds dear.
No one knows the painful secret he has allowed to fester, most just see a successful man whose obsession with birds is more than just a hobby. His brother thinks he’s arrogant, ‘too good’ for their mother, his wife feels neglected as his all consuming obsession with birds, his disappearing acts leaves her living like a single mother. Conservation seems hopeless for all the species of birds, but it’s his mind and family that need saving. He loves his children, believes they deserve to enjoy the bounty of youth, the careless happiness he himself never had. But it’s getting harder and harder be around them when he is sinking in his screaming thoughts and drug induced fogs. Though Stella attempts to confront him, he has excuses at the ready to brush her off. Then there is the mother he is avoiding, he once loved his mother with all of his being too, ‘She was his mother, his life raft, his home. How can this be turned upside down, flooded, ruined,’ until he couldn’t anymore. How could resentment, anger become so vile as to destroy a child?
How long has Adrian’s emotional absence been brewing? Just how much do we really keep for ourselves, how much can one keep hidden from our loved ones without being swallowed whole, without losing them? How much can we hide from ourselves? He is about to find out. Through birdwatching and drugs Adrian is disappearing, he is tortured by the past and self-medicating as to cease feeling anything at all. It’s interesting to think he haunts himself, that memories from our childhood are easy to muddy in careless hands. It’s hard to make my point without giving away secrets, but the saddest thing of all is that other people can sever bonds between people and change the trajectory of an entire life. How much of the present do we give to the past?
Available Now
Touchstone
June 18, 2018
Author Chris White introduces Adrian Mandrick to us as Adrian squashes through a wet field in expensive leather shoes to pursue a Golden-Crowned Sparrow while his wife has to choose between trick or treating without him or keeping the costumed kids at home. Later, he tells his wife he was late because of a surgery (Adrian is an anesthesiologist) after he’s unable to rescue his kids from a mob of pumpkin-heads before a mass strip-tease suitable only for adults. This is the first bad decision, followed by a lie, that separates Adrian from the people who love him. Chris White leads us through a series of these – the bad decisions escalating, the lies becoming more egregious, and the isolation worse – until we follow Adrian on his pursuit for the Ivory-billed woodpecker into a murky and militarized swamp towards the book’s climax.
Adrian’s choice of birding as a life framework makes sense for this isolated man, with its rigid life-listing protocols and weird social circle held together by arcane bird facts and competition between frenemies at the elite levels of birding. It gives Adrian a structure to combat a childhood of chaos, and it gives him structure as he becomes a lifelong drug addict. White gets the birding right, too – every detail (except one minor one*) rings true to the actual world of elite birdwatching.
I particularly admired the architecture of the book’s key themes – White weaves several elements together with real care, and this keeps the reader intrigued with the details while we keep turning pages to find out how big of a disaster Adrian will create for himself. Serious birding leads to some great outdoor adventures – many of them dangerous, and there are two of these in the book. Taking narcotics while performing surgery or driving are also really bad ideas that add some fine tension in places. White manages to make us care about broken Adrian even as he behaves like a shitheel in his narcotic-hazed obliviousness to his parents, wife and kids. There’s redemption in this story, but not of a trite variety, which makes the ending satisfying without being ridiculous.
Overall a very well-constructed, imaginative book with a plot that keeps the reader fully engaged.
*The minor error is that the ebird database is owned by the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, not the American Birding Association, a detail that will only matter to birders who keep life lists.
Adrian’s choice of birding as a life framework makes sense for this isolated man, with its rigid life-listing protocols and weird social circle held together by arcane bird facts and competition between frenemies at the elite levels of birding. It gives Adrian a structure to combat a childhood of chaos, and it gives him structure as he becomes a lifelong drug addict. White gets the birding right, too – every detail (except one minor one*) rings true to the actual world of elite birdwatching.
I particularly admired the architecture of the book’s key themes – White weaves several elements together with real care, and this keeps the reader intrigued with the details while we keep turning pages to find out how big of a disaster Adrian will create for himself. Serious birding leads to some great outdoor adventures – many of them dangerous, and there are two of these in the book. Taking narcotics while performing surgery or driving are also really bad ideas that add some fine tension in places. White manages to make us care about broken Adrian even as he behaves like a shitheel in his narcotic-hazed obliviousness to his parents, wife and kids. There’s redemption in this story, but not of a trite variety, which makes the ending satisfying without being ridiculous.
Overall a very well-constructed, imaginative book with a plot that keeps the reader fully engaged.
*The minor error is that the ebird database is owned by the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, not the American Birding Association, a detail that will only matter to birders who keep life lists.
April 29, 2018
It has been years -- perhaps 15 -- since I have read a book that I have loved quite so much. You would think in a book with such poignant imagery and such particular attention to theme and metaphor that the plot would trudge, barely able to keep up with the weight of the world that Chris White is painting on every face, on every feather. But the story is immense. Dr Mandrick's life is relatable without having to ever be similarly lived, somehow. He unfolds, difficult to know at first, puzzling at times, familiar at others. He is magnetic and tragic-- wounded by his past, his fame, and his obsessive nature. Everything good about him pulls at him. His family needs him. The birding community needs him. His mother, his friends, his job. He is beautiful, lost, and suffering-- not dissimilar to the captured bird who is tortured and killed just to be painted.
To be something of a critic, I wish Chris White had been a little more exacting on relaying his life as an anesthesiologist. Some of what she describes in terms of his profession is just pretty wrong. I moved past it quickly, but reading that he "scrubs in" to a case as an anesthesiologist felt like taking a tiny pellet gun to the eyeball. It is tough, if you aren't in the medical field, to get that stuff right.
That said, this book will live in my soul forever. I loved it.
To be something of a critic, I wish Chris White had been a little more exacting on relaying his life as an anesthesiologist. Some of what she describes in terms of his profession is just pretty wrong. I moved past it quickly, but reading that he "scrubs in" to a case as an anesthesiologist felt like taking a tiny pellet gun to the eyeball. It is tough, if you aren't in the medical field, to get that stuff right.
That said, this book will live in my soul forever. I loved it.
August 26, 2018
A hopeful and funny and poignant novel about extinction: the dying of species (and a 6-page memoriam to Native American tribes), the planet, family love, the nervous system of an opiate addict. Birds are the sustaining force for Adrian Mandrick, anesthesiologist, father, husband, son-- and he has buried the origin of his passion so deep he can hardly live at all.
“This is it, he realizes, the one small comfort in his life now-- the man’s naivete, his simple joy in the simplest birds. It’s a lifeline. There are no life lists for him (he can barely put a sentence together) but he reminds Adrian of himself years ago, when each bird was a miracle,. The purity of discovery and gratitude.” p. 147
“This is it, he realizes, the one small comfort in his life now-- the man’s naivete, his simple joy in the simplest birds. It’s a lifeline. There are no life lists for him (he can barely put a sentence together) but he reminds Adrian of himself years ago, when each bird was a miracle,. The purity of discovery and gratitude.” p. 147
June 8, 2018
My cursory review; This is a great novel. I was compelled throughout to dig deeper into this mystery of human obsession and frailty among both triumph and adversity. I was engaged thoroughly and feel rewarded for this insightful story that touches the empathy at my core. Empathy for the human condition, and the many paths to fulfillment one can choose. We cannot choose and understand them all, so I am grateful Chris White brilliantly captured a character on a path less glamorized in today's more ubiquitous pursuits.
June 6, 2021
I absolutely loved this book. Truly wonderful. As a bird watcher I was totally enthralled by Adrian’s adventures, triumphs and failures. Reading it I felt like I was right there with him throughout them.
And as a human being I was equally captivated by the roller coaster of Adrian’s life and the emotional nuance of it all. After reading the book I immediately had a meaningful conversation with my own mom.
Chris White is exceptionally talented at bringing you in and connecting you with the characters. You’ll feel the gamut of emotions and won’t be able to put it down!
And as a human being I was equally captivated by the roller coaster of Adrian’s life and the emotional nuance of it all. After reading the book I immediately had a meaningful conversation with my own mom.
Chris White is exceptionally talented at bringing you in and connecting you with the characters. You’ll feel the gamut of emotions and won’t be able to put it down!
June 22, 2018
Chris White gives us a story that zips like the first steep down on a roller coaster, but lingers in your consideration of how we humans survive. I heard once that owls close their eyes as a stress response to potential threats. I don't know if this is true (in contrast to White's well-researched and relevant tidbits on bird behaviors), but as this story initially unfolds Adrian's closing of eyes feels like a reasonable way of dealing with childhood trauma. That is, until White lays out the costs of stowing fear. I was particularly grateful for the last chapter--not so much rainbows and unicorns as a true hand up from a devastating turn.
April 14, 2018
This is a lovely book. Chris White writes about obsession and addiction as two sides of a poisonous coin. Adrian’s loneliness is almost another character in the book, haunting him even as he works, goes home to his family, and birds with his friends. The swamp reconciliation scene is stunning and memorable.
October 16, 2018
Disclosure: I know the editor of this book.
I wasn't sure I'd enjoy this, because I'm not really a fan of birds (come to think of it, I don't need to be a serial killer to enjoy a murder mystery, either!) I did find myself falling into Adrian's world, however - and the quest he was on throughout the book. I ended feeling I really wanted to know more about each of the characters in the book - like there could be an endless number of sequels that delved into each character's life more deeply - and that I would find it very enjoyable.
I was deliciously satisfied with this book on its own, however.
I wasn't sure I'd enjoy this, because I'm not really a fan of birds (come to think of it, I don't need to be a serial killer to enjoy a murder mystery, either!) I did find myself falling into Adrian's world, however - and the quest he was on throughout the book. I ended feeling I really wanted to know more about each of the characters in the book - like there could be an endless number of sequels that delved into each character's life more deeply - and that I would find it very enjoyable.
I was deliciously satisfied with this book on its own, however.
February 14, 2018
I love The Life List of Adrian Mandrick--I was completely swept away by it. The writing, the level of detail, is simply stunning. Adrian's journey is irresistable--I didn't want to read anything else, do anything else, until I finished. It's an extremely beautiful piece of work.
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