Customer Reviews

Winter Birds

5 star:		(17)
4 star:		(6)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Having just read "Comfort & Joy" and finding it a highly successful novel, I took fellow reviewers' suggestion and traced this author's literary progress by reading his initial novel, "Winter Birds". An incredible journey! Not only is his first novel enormously engrossing (like the fascination of watching an autopsy), learning the narrator's (Danny Crell) history supplements his further life voyage in "Comfort...". After being absorbed in Winter Birds for one evening, my immediate response was to re-read "Comfort & Joy" with a better knowledge of the polarity of that last book's main characters. Grimsley is a gifted writer, and knowing that his first successes were in playwriting is no surprise. "Winter Birds" is an intense, credible study of the type of dysfuntional family that we'd all rather not believe exists. But by writing this book I think Grimsley sensitizes us to look beyond the adult RE-actions of troubled people to find how incredible it is that many of these injured and abused people made it into adult life. Powerful, thought provoking writing.

A friend loaned me this book without comment but knowing that I am a juvenile court judge. I know this family in dozens of permutations, but I will empathize more when I see them next thanks to Jim Grimsley. I started and finished the book in one sitting last night. It is a powerfully executed visit inside the life of a boy who is surviving a violent family minute-by-minute. The characters cry out for peace, for relief from the cruelty of a father and husband who views them as property, and from a society that agrees. Excellent book that makes me crave more of the same, but only after I manage to exhale.

Readers and reviewers have panned this novel as grim. But it is a celebration of the courage of Danny, a character who reappears (starring) in the novel "Comfort & Joy." We all know abuse happens - especially in situations of poverty. Compound that with the inherent abuse of an ignorant father against his small hemophiliac child and you have a definite "tear-jerker." Defying cliche, again, as he does in all of his novels, Grimsley shows the silent strength of the children who help their mother to dodge the father's brutality. You quickly envision the souls of 40 year olds trapped in the body of toddlers. It is something profoundly emotive. Something to be savored. Grimsley's talent lies in painting a psychological portrait of the characters. This can be a daunting task, but he does so with ease and fluidity. I recommend this book not because of its "tearjerker" plotline, but because of the inherent hope that rises from the strength of its characters. Much like his novel "Comfort and Joy," the writer seeks to ensconce desolation with strength and hope. It's a novel that is not grim; it is a novel that seeks to show the points of light in the pitch black of sadness.

This book has a voice like no other. I have read all of Grimsley's books and loved them all, but this is my favorite. Grimsley combines present tense and second person to create an utterly unique narrative character, Danny Crell. Neither Danny nor Jim Grimsley flinch away from any event in Danny's life, no matter how horrible or violent. The result is a realistic and terrible story told with unparalleled clarity, simplicity, and detail. Grimsley has such a good grasp of proportion, one almost regards him as a photographer rather than a writer. This is one of those books you fall into as if down a well, and don't emerge from until it's over. . .if then.

A friend recommended highly "Winter Birds" to me. It is one of the most remarkable gifts I've ever been given. Cold and winter outside my window, and in this book too. Electric and frightening and so bare bones nostalgia it left me shaken. Danny might be everyboy. I've known people who were in this brooding sad violent despair. I've known Danny in a way. A brave frighened gentle child with hemophilia which, my friend believes, might be symbolic of homosexuality. Having to be aware of the smallest cuts. Having to be aware of the blood pouring out of you and people staring who are afraid and so superior. They having never to think of such things, therefore, why should anyone? It is a book of such sadness and courage and bleak beauty, the smells of the outhouse, the fears of snakes under beds and in closets (and there being there in actuality too), the father who is a broken man, even more broken than his mangled arm from a farm machine accident. Violent and alcoholic and filled with such terrible anger at the world and not being able to do a thing about it. Only able to lash out at the family who care, or once cared, about him, and feeling justified in alienating them as well. Proof that the entire world is out to get him. Good, at any cost, at such a cost, to know he is right. The violence is epic in proportion. What, perhaps, all children suffer psychically. Here though in this rude clapboard house where mother and children hide from him, hoping he will leave them just alone this time, knowing he will not, the violence and danger are most palpable. The giddy feverish pitch of those chapters of terrible suffering. The lovely stark poetry of the writing and the feel for wishing even this childhood could return for a time. Especially this one. And the ending that is the true rape, beyond physical, the rape of a woman who holds her family together, and of her son who has been, I feel, denied the ability to dream of river gods and golden lions and Technicolor movies where he can hide. Keep everything on the outside. Out of mind. Out of heart. But Danny, as my friend said, becomes a diamond from this. Extends his hard won understanding and compassion to the dark corners of people and lives. Because in the end, as Danny knows, it's the only way to survive. Understand them and their sadnesses. Envelop them. Forgive them. There is only insanity in the other direction.

The mood and tone Grimsley is able to evoke is stunning. While the plot wavers around somewhat and the characters act in inexplicable ways, the power of the narrative will touch a chord in your heart that will reverberate for years. I'm looking forward to reading more from this talented first-time novelist.

This book, a cringing, nightmarish, too-violent-to-not-be-real heart wrencher, is nevertheless beautiful and extremely transfixing. The story is told in an eerie second-person narrative by Danny Crell, one of five children in a family with an unbelievably abusive alcoholic father.

At the beginning of the book after meeting Danny's brothers (one of whom is a hemophiliac like himself), the reader is also introduced to Danny's fantasy world near the river adjacent to the family home (dubbed "the circle house" due to its spherical path of doors). Danny has imagined for himself a kind and attentive father he calls The River Man, who is described to appear somewhat like bigfoot. As the stories of abuse begin in flashback form, we see very little of Danny's River Man, yet it sometimes feels as though the story is being told by him: "Even with a new baby she watched you every minute, Danny, and you never stepped out of the house without her warning you to be careful."

The novel culminates on Thanksgiving Day with unimaginable horror and a final act no one would suspect. The resolution I was hoping for never arrived, perhaps making the work even more realistic. A devastating book, but one worth reading. I look forward to reading Jim Grimsley's other novels.

Reading Winter Birds was a heart-rending experience. The story is harsh, stark brutal yet flows like an exquisite poetry. Rarely has a story made me wished the author could be kinder to his characters. The torment suffered by Danny, his mama and his siblings due to his abusive alcoholic papa just tears at my heart. The fact that Danny and his little brother, Groove, were haemophiliacs just made the story bleaker, with no happiness in sight. The ending was not tragic but still leaves a hollowness in my heart. Winter Bird must surely by Grimsley best work.

Like his novel Dreamboy, Winter Birds is equally as powerful and provocative. The narrative is as flawless as the fresh white now that covers the Crell's lawn. The imagery is rich with emotion and draws readers into the struggle and survival of the Crell family, drawing us further into the mind of Danny, the young boy at the heart of the novel. For most of us, domestic abuse is something unfathomable, that we know only through TV. Winter Birds paints an honest, yet disturbing, picture of a family enduring such pain and surviving till the next day as winter birds often do.

This book is written in a style that, in a amazingly quiet and loving tone, tells a tale that reveals a cold and ugly hatred that has developed within a failed marriage and family.

Through vague scenes of escapism and beauty, Grisley contrasts the scenes of fear and ugliness of family violence that has occurred. Throughout, the strange quietness of the narration has created a vague effect that seems to paint a picture as vivid as reality.

Although this story starts out with a boring (IMO) and confusing start, the fear lying in the children are apparent when there are references to the father.

Tension is often apparent in the first part of the novel, ominous as it is, particularly in the disturbingly quiet settings. By the end of the story, a bloody occasion occurred by the Circle House-- a ring of doors from bedroom to bedroom to kitchen to bedroom. Perhaps this room is a symbol of the relationship between mother and father and children as all of them know there is no way to escape, and perhaps the violence and dreamy withdrawals would continue for as long as their father was around.

This is a very good book, considering the gentle narration and the way it builds up to the dynamics with nothing left out in between (when something is left out, it implies enough). Although told from the viewpoint of an eight-year-old, the mature reader will be able to understand. It covers the issues of gender discrimination and family violence, at the same time showing us the revelation of the underlying motives behind these misdoings.

(My theory is that Grisley intended for it to be told by an adult Danny to the child Danny.)