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Night Birds
In Night Birds, Lucy's grandmother, Annie Maude, may be a witch, her school's lunch lady might be a murderer, and a mysterious figure stalks her in the small South Carolina town where she lives. The chapters consider themes of mental illness, religion, sexual orientation, witchcraft, and death as seen through the eyes of this plucky girl growing up in a haunted house in the 1960's. Charming, provocative, funny, and creepy as Hell, Night Birds will shake you up before leaving you all warm and fuzzy inside.
162 pages, Paperback
Published June 13, 2022
16 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews
June 19, 2022
This is a strange, wild ride of a tale that will stay with you long after you have finished reading it.
The ideal state of mind for any reader starting on this book would be that of a blank slate. This novel is, for a big part, a story of discovering - and recovering - so it is better not to know much more of the story than the narrator herself does. Ultimately, this book is about the knowledge of experience as much as the experience of knowledge: how much reality can we stand? What weight of memories can we tolerate and what will be left of us when we choose to forget? There's also the ever looming question: what is real, what is sane? How much can we trust our senses and the things we think we know & remember? Still, what makes this book so good, and so memorable, is that we feel deeply for the narrator: we share her fears, her anger, her doubts, her flights of fancy and her deeply rooted sense of place. While you walk with her, you will know joy and horror, pain but also relief, very much including the relief of laughter, because this story, that moves from the past to the present, but more in a loosely stitched pattern than in a straight line, is also very funny.
The ideal state of mind for any reader starting on this book would be that of a blank slate. This novel is, for a big part, a story of discovering - and recovering - so it is better not to know much more of the story than the narrator herself does. Ultimately, this book is about the knowledge of experience as much as the experience of knowledge: how much reality can we stand? What weight of memories can we tolerate and what will be left of us when we choose to forget? There's also the ever looming question: what is real, what is sane? How much can we trust our senses and the things we think we know & remember? Still, what makes this book so good, and so memorable, is that we feel deeply for the narrator: we share her fears, her anger, her doubts, her flights of fancy and her deeply rooted sense of place. While you walk with her, you will know joy and horror, pain but also relief, very much including the relief of laughter, because this story, that moves from the past to the present, but more in a loosely stitched pattern than in a straight line, is also very funny.
July 4, 2022
A spooky southern gothic ghost story filled with heart. Beautifully written compelling story filled with lived in details and character dynamics that make the story come alive. Come for the witchcraft and ghosts and stay for the wonderful message and insights at the book’s core.
June 28, 2022
This is a story about a possibly magical place and probably magical people as seen through the eyes of a young girl growing up in South Caroling in a family full of secrets.
The characters are compelling, and the story keeps pulling you through - I sat and read it in a day because I couldn't put it down and I am an absolute book brat, very picky.
I loved this book, the characters, and the messiness of life as seen through the eyes of a girl growing up. I want to go to this place and get to know these people, and I am very hopeful that I will see more about them in the future!
The characters are compelling, and the story keeps pulling you through - I sat and read it in a day because I couldn't put it down and I am an absolute book brat, very picky.
I loved this book, the characters, and the messiness of life as seen through the eyes of a girl growing up. I want to go to this place and get to know these people, and I am very hopeful that I will see more about them in the future!
October 20, 2022
NIGHT BIRDS is difficult to pigeonhole. It has the down to earth feel of a family saga with a twinkle of the speculative… perhaps more than a twinkle. As I was reading, the closest I could come to defining the genre was southern gothic.
In this intimate autobiographical portrait of a young girl, we find her embroiled in a family with dark secrets and, maybe, not so dark secrets that are only considered as such because of the era. The early 1960s ushered in a time of upheaval that wasn't immediately embraced by the rural south.
I've read any number of books by Alan Clark, and I see his unmistakable hand in this collaboration. If you read the bits about the authors, you will find that both Clark and Snellings grew up in the South - Lisa Snellings in South Carolina and Alan M. Clark in Tennessee. As a city girl, born and bred, stories like NIGHT BIRDS bring perspective to bygone eras. As an eclectic reader, I take great comfort in learning about the lives of people in all circumstances.
I absolutely enjoyed reading NIGHT BIRDS and would relish another collaboration between these two.
In this intimate autobiographical portrait of a young girl, we find her embroiled in a family with dark secrets and, maybe, not so dark secrets that are only considered as such because of the era. The early 1960s ushered in a time of upheaval that wasn't immediately embraced by the rural south.
I've read any number of books by Alan Clark, and I see his unmistakable hand in this collaboration. If you read the bits about the authors, you will find that both Clark and Snellings grew up in the South - Lisa Snellings in South Carolina and Alan M. Clark in Tennessee. As a city girl, born and bred, stories like NIGHT BIRDS bring perspective to bygone eras. As an eclectic reader, I take great comfort in learning about the lives of people in all circumstances.
I absolutely enjoyed reading NIGHT BIRDS and would relish another collaboration between these two.
July 20, 2022
This book about ghosts and magic feels more real than most stories. In real life we only get glimpses of what's going on, and hardly ever find out what happened before or afterwards. We pass a stranger on the street and never know what brought them there or where they went. Stories are usually different, with authors explaining the past and detailing the consequences. That doesn't happen here.
Our narrator/protagonist is smart enough to know that this is going on, but she's also smart enough to know when asking questions won't get her answers. As she grows, she finds out more and pieces together her family's history. But it's an uneasy, strange journey with characters that hold an uncomfortable amount of secrets.
And that's part of reading this book: you know there's more to what's going on, you look for clues everywhere, there's more unwritten than written. You become emotionally invested in this little girl growing up in a world that is both strange and familiar at the same time. It is a remarkable acomplishment, and the authors should be congratulated.
Our narrator/protagonist is smart enough to know that this is going on, but she's also smart enough to know when asking questions won't get her answers. As she grows, she finds out more and pieces together her family's history. But it's an uneasy, strange journey with characters that hold an uncomfortable amount of secrets.
And that's part of reading this book: you know there's more to what's going on, you look for clues everywhere, there's more unwritten than written. You become emotionally invested in this little girl growing up in a world that is both strange and familiar at the same time. It is a remarkable acomplishment, and the authors should be congratulated.
August 9, 2022
I have been following Lisa Snellings for several years, dating from an article by Neil Gaiman praising her art. Once I started I was pulled in, and in due course became one of her Patreon supporters.
Though I have little space and less money I finally purchased one of her Poppets recently.
In following her on Facebook and Patreon I was able to read bits of her stories, some of which eventually became this book, so of course I pre-ordered it as soon as possible. That is where speed suddenly became less of a necessity.
For me, reading this was almost as much a labor of love as the writing must have been. A journey through a childhood I found simultaneously uncomfortably familiar and eerily alien. IMO this slim volume deserves to be savored, one chapter at a time, not galloped through in mad haste. Missing the delicate details, some as spooky and mundane as cobwebs, others that send icy fingers down the spine, still others almost visceral in their immediacy and relatability - absolutely criminal!
Some of the imagery still haunted me from my earlier sneak previews, and I had to let them breathe before I could continue. The smell of an air mattress can have enormous impact in her capable hands.
So I took my sweet time, never letting it sit too long, but inevitably the adventure reached its oddly satisfying conclusion. In another year I expect I shall bring it down from the shelf for a reread, but for now I am enjoying the imagined smells and sounds, and wishing I could have met Annie Maud and other characters in life.
Highly recommended!
Though I have little space and less money I finally purchased one of her Poppets recently.
In following her on Facebook and Patreon I was able to read bits of her stories, some of which eventually became this book, so of course I pre-ordered it as soon as possible. That is where speed suddenly became less of a necessity.
For me, reading this was almost as much a labor of love as the writing must have been. A journey through a childhood I found simultaneously uncomfortably familiar and eerily alien. IMO this slim volume deserves to be savored, one chapter at a time, not galloped through in mad haste. Missing the delicate details, some as spooky and mundane as cobwebs, others that send icy fingers down the spine, still others almost visceral in their immediacy and relatability - absolutely criminal!
Some of the imagery still haunted me from my earlier sneak previews, and I had to let them breathe before I could continue. The smell of an air mattress can have enormous impact in her capable hands.
So I took my sweet time, never letting it sit too long, but inevitably the adventure reached its oddly satisfying conclusion. In another year I expect I shall bring it down from the shelf for a reread, but for now I am enjoying the imagined smells and sounds, and wishing I could have met Annie Maud and other characters in life.
Highly recommended!
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews