Customer Reviews

Plumage

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It must have been while I was going to all those singles dances that I became fascinated by mating rituals, and decided to write about a woman getting back into fancy feathers after almost three decades of marriage. I knew how hard it was to do this, and how difficult to get back into courtship dances and billing and cooing... Stuck in a bird metaphor, I researched bowerbirds and budgies and hoatzins and such, becoming even more engrossed. Hey, all sorts of women's issues are incarnated in grackles and cassowaries and geese. I discovered that birds and humans have a lot more in common than just walking on two legs. Wow, do avian relationships parallel human ones! Birds of a feather share household chores together, but in species that glorify the male...watch out. Gender Inequality Alert. And how does my dowdy, dumped, middle-aged heroine, poor little Sassy, feel about that?

Hmmm...Of course, there are some important differences between birds and people:

1) In avian species in which the genders differ in appearance, the male gets to wear the fancy feathers. Of course, in humans, there are drag queens.... Enter Racquel, my other main character.

2) In birds, mating is done via cloaca. Only waterfowl have...um, to put it crudely, only ducks have ... . And how does Racquel feel about that?

3) Birds can fly. That's a real, real important difference. Does Sassy want to fly?

Don't we all?

I'm a funny little bird myself, I guess, to be thinking about these things. By the time I got finished writing PLUMAGE, I almost felt like I could eat pokeweed and crap purple. But there's a lot more to life -- and PLUMAGE -- than just fun and fancy feathers. Being able to fly has a lot to do with remembering how.

I purchased Plumage because it received a favorable review in an article on several books that addressed "women's issues" from different perspectives. To be honest, I wasn't all that interested in issue-oriented fiction, but it also sounded like it might be a good read. It hung around the house for quite a while before I picked it up one day and discovered that it is better than a good read - it's a great read.

Plumage is one of those novels that restores your faith in - indeed, rekindles your memory of - the pleasure of a wonderful story. You are quickly drawn into the plot, which is quite imaginative, and slowly but surely come to feel the world through Sassy's eyes. The author's choice of words is not self-consciously artsy; yet her descriptions of the natural world (and particularly its colors and textures) are very evocative and perfectly integrated into the story itself.

I won't reveal any of that story, as it should be experienced first-hand. But I will tell you that while reading it I found myself thinking of the child I once was, and how I experienced the world back then, and how all of us lose something as we make the transition to our adult selves, something that we can occasionally reclaim - at least in part.

The plot is compelling and the resolution completely satisfying, but the real pleasure is in the journey itself. I am not a big fan of fantasy - I'd rather read Dostoevsky than Tolkien - but Plumage appeals on multiple levels. It appeals to both your "sense of the sensible" and your sense of wonder. Highly recommended; a fine-feathered find.