Before Women Had Wings

A nine-year-old narrator whose voice is heavy with sorrow, but who learns t ruths about the heart, is the focus of Fowler's deeply moving, triumphant t hird novel. The reader, too, learns lessons about a child's love for her pa rents, even when that child is the helpless victim of their physical and em otional abuse. Avocet Jackson, called Bird, lives with her parents, Billy a nd Glory Marie, and her older sister, Phoebe, in a roach-infested Florida s hack. When Billy, a frustrated country music singer who has squandered his talent in booze, commits suicide, a desperate Glory Marie takes the girls t o the outskirts of Tampa, where they move into a dilapidated trailer. Terro rized by her mother's alcohol-fueled rages, Bird is further confused by the fire-and-brimstone strictures of the Bible, which she takes literally. She feels that Jesus and the devil are battling for control over her life, and when her mother becomes more violent and calls her "a fat, lazy, lying sac k of shit," she concludes that Jesus has spurned her. Fowler brilliantly co nveys a child's bewilderment when the sources that should provide succorpa rents and religioninstead inspire fear. Her depictions of physical violenc eGlory Marie's beating at the hands of a man hired by her jealous husband, or her own brutal attacks on Bird and Phoebespare no harrowing details. F owler sweeps the narrative along with plangent, lyrical prose. Mixing the s qualid details of Bird's life with the child's magical dreams of hope and h ealing, she has fulfilled the promise of her highly praised debut, Sugar Ca ge, and established herself as a writer of formidable talent.

Product Info

ISBN: 0804118906

ISBN-13: 9780804118903

Publisher: Ivy Books

Year: 1999

Type: Used

Binding: Softcover

Seller Info

InfinityBooksJapan

Address: 1F Komagata Heights Bldg Tokyo,

Website: https://www.infinitybooksjapan.com

Country: Japan