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Bird Country
A boat trip in a squall to scatter the ashes of an old man, who was not loved.
A young father, driving his daughters home across grass plains, unable to tell them that their mother has died.
A speech that doesn’t include the aching pain of trying to save a cousin’s life.
A mother hiding her fugitive son in a cockatoo cage as the river rises.
A man pouring his life into finding the perfect stained glass after his wife has left him.
A woman longing for the right person to tell about her sister’s death, while she works nightshift at a roadhouse.
These are moving and evocative stories about love and loss and yearning—and the things we don’t say. Claire Aman is a strong new voice in Australian fiction.
A young father, driving his daughters home across grass plains, unable to tell them that their mother has died.
A speech that doesn’t include the aching pain of trying to save a cousin’s life.
A mother hiding her fugitive son in a cockatoo cage as the river rises.
A man pouring his life into finding the perfect stained glass after his wife has left him.
A woman longing for the right person to tell about her sister’s death, while she works nightshift at a roadhouse.
These are moving and evocative stories about love and loss and yearning—and the things we don’t say. Claire Aman is a strong new voice in Australian fiction.
- GenresShort StoriesFiction
288 pages, Paperback
First published August 1, 2017
2 people are currently reading
151 people want to read
About the author
Claire Aman
6 books7 followersClaire Aman lives in Grafton, New South Wales. A Varuna alumnus, she has had stories commended in the Tasmanian Wildcare and Fellowship of Australian Writers awards, and a story published in Island. ‘Jap Floral’ was commended in the 2008 Alan Marshall Short Story Award.
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Displaying 1 - 12 of 12 reviews
January 15, 2018
‘Claire Aman’s warm and tough debut collection Bird Country carries such technical command that Aman is already an established hand at the form.’
Saturday Paper, Best Books of 2017, Best New Talent
‘A suite of quietly beautiful short stories based in and around Grafton…A loving snapshot of a naturally beautiful but slightly melancholy rural centre. They are stories of fierce family loyalties, old age, poverty and small dignities, the kind that country towns seem to embody.’
Books+Publishing
‘Aman’s tales are burnished with a quiet intensity…While there’s a precision to the placing of each word that speaks of a controlling rigour, the actual content of these 16 stories reveals a certain freewheeling dramatic flair…Here is grief and beauty in symphony.’
Australian
‘Aman writes: “The poet sees the hugeness of things. She will distil and distil until she has a single shining drop.” This is also true of Bird Country, which packs huge themes—poverty, friendship, disability, abuse, death, family, addiction—into sixteen excellent short stories.’
New Zealand Herald
‘Aman’s ideas are original and her imagination fertile. Her writing is generally attractive and strong, with a sure touch when it comes to telling detail…Aman is capable of some showstopper phrases, such as the “naked and mortified brightness” of the dead possum’s eyes in “Sustenance”, and she has a nice line in dry humour…Peopled with memorable and often touching characters, and redolent of Australia, Bird Country is a thoroughly enjoyable and varied reading experience, and Aman is a writer to watch.’
NZ Listener
‘A variety of birds—both free and caged—illustrate the human condition…I enjoyed the variety of emotions and the rich imagery in Aman’s anthology.’
Good Reading, four stars
‘It is rare these days that a complete collection of short stories can sustain a sense of breathless wonder throughout each and every piece included in its pages…But in the Australian short story scene, exciting things are happening, and I believe Claire Aman’s debut collection Bird Country is one of them…This is a collection that will bear reading and rereading, and rereading again in the years to come.’
AU Review
‘Set against the Australian landscape, this is a wonderful collection of moving and evocative stories about relationships and what happens when things are left unsaid.’
Page & Blackmore EndFragment
‘The 16 stories capture snapshots of poignant experiences and moments in time that are rich in emotion and thought-provoking. Inspired by motorcyclists, sailors, uninvited guests, bridge jumpers and bird fanciers, Aman tells her stories in descriptive prose and paints images that remain with you long after you have turned the final page.’
Weekly Times
‘A suite of fresh and beautiful short stories from the broken families and clapped-out pubs and river towns of rural Australia.’
Helen Garner, Sydney Morning Herald’s Year in Reading
Saturday Paper, Best Books of 2017, Best New Talent
‘A suite of quietly beautiful short stories based in and around Grafton…A loving snapshot of a naturally beautiful but slightly melancholy rural centre. They are stories of fierce family loyalties, old age, poverty and small dignities, the kind that country towns seem to embody.’
Books+Publishing
‘Aman’s tales are burnished with a quiet intensity…While there’s a precision to the placing of each word that speaks of a controlling rigour, the actual content of these 16 stories reveals a certain freewheeling dramatic flair…Here is grief and beauty in symphony.’
Australian
‘Aman writes: “The poet sees the hugeness of things. She will distil and distil until she has a single shining drop.” This is also true of Bird Country, which packs huge themes—poverty, friendship, disability, abuse, death, family, addiction—into sixteen excellent short stories.’
New Zealand Herald
‘Aman’s ideas are original and her imagination fertile. Her writing is generally attractive and strong, with a sure touch when it comes to telling detail…Aman is capable of some showstopper phrases, such as the “naked and mortified brightness” of the dead possum’s eyes in “Sustenance”, and she has a nice line in dry humour…Peopled with memorable and often touching characters, and redolent of Australia, Bird Country is a thoroughly enjoyable and varied reading experience, and Aman is a writer to watch.’
NZ Listener
‘A variety of birds—both free and caged—illustrate the human condition…I enjoyed the variety of emotions and the rich imagery in Aman’s anthology.’
Good Reading, four stars
‘It is rare these days that a complete collection of short stories can sustain a sense of breathless wonder throughout each and every piece included in its pages…But in the Australian short story scene, exciting things are happening, and I believe Claire Aman’s debut collection Bird Country is one of them…This is a collection that will bear reading and rereading, and rereading again in the years to come.’
AU Review
‘Set against the Australian landscape, this is a wonderful collection of moving and evocative stories about relationships and what happens when things are left unsaid.’
Page & Blackmore EndFragment
‘The 16 stories capture snapshots of poignant experiences and moments in time that are rich in emotion and thought-provoking. Inspired by motorcyclists, sailors, uninvited guests, bridge jumpers and bird fanciers, Aman tells her stories in descriptive prose and paints images that remain with you long after you have turned the final page.’
Weekly Times
‘A suite of fresh and beautiful short stories from the broken families and clapped-out pubs and river towns of rural Australia.’
Helen Garner, Sydney Morning Herald’s Year in Reading
October 5, 2017
Beautifully written short stories, largely set in regional NSW. A few stories didn't quite click for me, but the majority were wonderful, with a quiet sadness permeating them.
December 23, 2023
3.5/5 - Anthology of regional NSW stories. All really nice prose, I probably got a little tired of the setting but a few stories really clicked.
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July 3, 2022This review was first published on the Underground Writers website and can also be read on the reviewer's website here: https://oddfeather.co/2018/05/09/1199/
Bird Country is Claire Aman’s first book, a short story collection featuring works that have previously been published by Black Inc., Griffith Review, Spineless Wonders, Margaret River Press, Scribe, ABR, and Island, so you may have read some of them before.
All of Aman’s stories deal with loss and longing in some form, and they are bleak and heartfelt. She has a lightness of touch with her characters; they are sparsely described, often not even given names, and their actions are described with a detachment that, far from washing out the characters and leaving them unreachable to the reader, enhances them in the manner of the archetype, of the everyperson. Her characters could be you, or your parents, your sibling, your partner. They, along with the familiar settings and situations, are almost transcendent: that could easily be you or someone you know at that wedding, that funeral, in that boat, on that road trip, about to be caught in that flood.
Complementing the everyperson nature of her characters, Aman’s settings are familiar, deeply Australian, and unsettlingly atmospheric. Her stories would not have the impact they do if it weren’t for the almost suffocating presence of the sunshine, the open road, the emptiness, the rain, the suburbs. She places her characters in settings so conversant that the reader feels plunged into the heat and humidity, brushing flies away and wishing the rain would come, or stop, and for anyone who has grown up in rural Australia it will feel like returning home for a few short pages.
Perhaps the most striking element of this collection is that most of the stories of Bird Country deal with death in some form, and often in unexpected ways. A small family take their grandfather’s ashes out to sea. A handyman helps an old woman live her last days with dignity. A father is unable to tell his daughters that their mother has passed. A candlestick maker is deeply affected by the death of a possum. Death appears in all forms and to all people, and Aman captures it in her everyperson characters in their deeply familiar settings, leaving the reader feeling unsettled and somehow wounded.
I would recommend this work to anyone who wants to inhabit the bleakness, solitude, and profound otherness of rural Australian landscapes, to anyone who is grieving or longing for someone, and to anyone who likes their stories with a heavy dose of foreboding that sometimes but not always arrives.
Bird Country is Claire Aman’s first book, a short story collection featuring works that have previously been published by Black Inc., Griffith Review, Spineless Wonders, Margaret River Press, Scribe, ABR, and Island, so you may have read some of them before.
All of Aman’s stories deal with loss and longing in some form, and they are bleak and heartfelt. She has a lightness of touch with her characters; they are sparsely described, often not even given names, and their actions are described with a detachment that, far from washing out the characters and leaving them unreachable to the reader, enhances them in the manner of the archetype, of the everyperson. Her characters could be you, or your parents, your sibling, your partner. They, along with the familiar settings and situations, are almost transcendent: that could easily be you or someone you know at that wedding, that funeral, in that boat, on that road trip, about to be caught in that flood.
Complementing the everyperson nature of her characters, Aman’s settings are familiar, deeply Australian, and unsettlingly atmospheric. Her stories would not have the impact they do if it weren’t for the almost suffocating presence of the sunshine, the open road, the emptiness, the rain, the suburbs. She places her characters in settings so conversant that the reader feels plunged into the heat and humidity, brushing flies away and wishing the rain would come, or stop, and for anyone who has grown up in rural Australia it will feel like returning home for a few short pages.
Perhaps the most striking element of this collection is that most of the stories of Bird Country deal with death in some form, and often in unexpected ways. A small family take their grandfather’s ashes out to sea. A handyman helps an old woman live her last days with dignity. A father is unable to tell his daughters that their mother has passed. A candlestick maker is deeply affected by the death of a possum. Death appears in all forms and to all people, and Aman captures it in her everyperson characters in their deeply familiar settings, leaving the reader feeling unsettled and somehow wounded.
I would recommend this work to anyone who wants to inhabit the bleakness, solitude, and profound otherness of rural Australian landscapes, to anyone who is grieving or longing for someone, and to anyone who likes their stories with a heavy dose of foreboding that sometimes but not always arrives.
October 18, 2017
I cannot offer enough praise for the writing. A wonderful read with stories full of observations that have you dwelling on long after finishing. The characters, situations, decisions, outcomes all rolled into story after story makes for a fine example of short story writing. And all this without the mention of one Jacaranda. Well done.
September 6, 2017
Contemporary semi-rural Aussie short stories and refreshingly different - Well done!
October 27, 2017
Brilliant and exceptional writing from Claire Aman. The stories were poignant and moving, and at times would not let me put the book down.
June 25, 2018
Poignant, beautifully written short stories.
July 3, 2025
brilliant.
April 12, 2020
I struggled through this book. Not because it's not well-written (it is) but because the main theme of most of the stories is longing. There was a time when longing was a big part of my life, in the form of not telling someone something, of not dealing with something, of looking back on regrets and not knowing how to work through them, of wishing for something and not doing it. I don't have time for that shit any more. Talk to the person. Do the thing. Eat the food. Go on that trip. Kiss that person.
These stories are beautiful, I suppose, for their longing, and I'm sure there was a time when I would have loved to wallow in the sweet unfulfilled emo sadness of longing, but I don't do that any more and reading about it was difficult and tedious. As I said, it's well-written, the author has a light touch and approaches the characters and setting brilliantly, but the content just isn't what I can enjoy any more.
Recommended for anyone who needs to wallow or dream dreams of sadness and regret.
For a more positive review, consult my blog at : http://oddfeather.co/2018/05/09/1199/
These stories are beautiful, I suppose, for their longing, and I'm sure there was a time when I would have loved to wallow in the sweet unfulfilled emo sadness of longing, but I don't do that any more and reading about it was difficult and tedious. As I said, it's well-written, the author has a light touch and approaches the characters and setting brilliantly, but the content just isn't what I can enjoy any more.
Recommended for anyone who needs to wallow or dream dreams of sadness and regret.
For a more positive review, consult my blog at : http://oddfeather.co/2018/05/09/1199/
March 16, 2021
I found Bird Country to be a bit hit and miss (and to be honest, more miss than hit).
Although I love reading short stories I found this collection difficult to connect with. But there was one story that stood out for me.
Communion had just the right pitch and voice, and its voice convinced me from the opening line. I believed in the character and the story, and its economy of language that underscored the theme of loneliness. There was a conviction in the writing of this story that, for me, was absent in the rest of the collection. To put it simply, this story made me feel something but the others did not.
Still, others may find more to like in Bird Country, so if you enjoy short story collections it's worth giving it a go.
Although I love reading short stories I found this collection difficult to connect with. But there was one story that stood out for me.
Communion had just the right pitch and voice, and its voice convinced me from the opening line. I believed in the character and the story, and its economy of language that underscored the theme of loneliness. There was a conviction in the writing of this story that, for me, was absent in the rest of the collection. To put it simply, this story made me feel something but the others did not.
Still, others may find more to like in Bird Country, so if you enjoy short story collections it's worth giving it a go.
August 26, 2017
Bird country is a moving glance into the human condition told from a truly Australian perspective in the rural setting of Grafton.
Displaying 1 - 12 of 12 reviews