Customer Reviews

Bluebird Cafe

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What a delight! I have ordered enough favorites (and clunkers) from Amazon over the years that their recommendations are beginning to pay off. This is one that has. Carmel Bird is one of the most imaginative, amusing, off-beat, and deceptive authors I have come across in years. Whoda thunk there was a Tasmanian woman writing such exciting fiction? This novel is a melange of history, fantasy, comedy, tragedy, and mystery tied up with a neat little bow. While amusing and easy to digest, it offers much to ponder and admire. It's deceptively simple yet both challenging and entertaining. It's also a good place to start a course of enjoyment of this terrific author. Since reading this, I have read a book of short stories, 'Woodpecker Point', which is just as delightful and perhaps even more alarming (especially the title story), and a longer, darker novel, Cape Grimm, which takes place in the same neighborhood as 'Bluebird Cafe' and even features some of the same characters and myths. There is nothing better for a lover of literature than to happen upon a new and exciting voice (actually, Ms Bird is in her sixties now but she is new to me). Give her a chance and let me know what you think!

The Bluebird Café's protagonist is clearly the island state of Tasmania and the fictional city (original and recreation) of Copperfield--although it's the depiction of the real places of Tasmania that make this book so entertaining. It uses a disjointed narrative structure similar to Illywhacker and The Beautiful and the Damned but not as expertly. In this case, the unusual structure hinders an otherwise interesting story.