Présentation de l'éditeur
My name is Avocet Abigail Jackson. But because Mama couldn't find anyone who thought Avocet was a fine name for a child, she called me Bird. Which is okay by me. She named both her children after birds, her logic being that if we were named for something with wings then maybe we'd be able to fly above the shit in our lives. . . .
So says Bird Jackson, the mesmerizing narrator of Connie May Fowler's vivid and brilliantly written,
Before Women Had Wings.
Starstruck by a dime-store picture of Jesus, Bird fancies herself "His girlfriend" and embarks upon a spiritual quest for salvation, even as the chaos of her home life plunges her into a stony silence. In stark and honest language, she tells the tragic life of her father, a sweet-talking wanna-be country music star, tracks her older sister's perilous journey into womanhood, and witnesses her mother make a courageous and ultimately devastating decision.
Yet most profound is Bird's own story--her struggle to sift through the ashes of her parents' lives, her meeting with Miss Zora, a healer whose prayers over the bones of winged creatures are meant to guide their souls to heaven, and her will to make sense of a world where fear is more plentiful than hope, retribution more valued than love. . . .
"A thing of heart-rending beauty, a moving exploration of love and loss, violence and grief, forgiveness and redemption."
--
Chicago Tribune
"There is no denying the depth of Connie May Fowler's talent and the breadth of her imagination."
--
The New York Times Book Review
"Brilliant."
--
The Boston Sunday Globe
Extrait
Ballantine Reader's Circle: Before Women Had Wings (Excerpt)Chapter 1
Back in 1965, on a day so hot that God Almighty should have been writhing with sick-to-the-stomach guilt over driving His children out of the cool green of Eden, my daddy walked into our general store, held a revolver to his head, told my mama that he couldn't take any more and that because of her harsh ways and his many sins he was going to blow his brains out.
Seconds earlier, when it had been just Mama and I in that dusty old store, I'd been thinking about food. Sweets, to be exact. I used to suffer craving spells. Still do when I get to thinking about things. I don't know what spurred the want back then, a want for sugar that was so strong I would grind my teeth flat until my needs were met. Could it be that my deep yearning was caused by a sadness bred in the womb, a dark past we're helpless to undo or make right, a history we have no memory of once we're birthed into this world? Are there events so ancient and awful that our fresh lives are spoiled even before the cord is cut, so we keep craving?
These are questions for which I haven't a single answer. In fact, answers aren't part of my nature. Details are what I'm about--stacks and stacks of details--the bones of my family, calcified vessels, the marrow chock-full of wishes and regrets. In my mind I pick up the bones one by one--a leg bone, a hip, then a spine that looks like a witch's ladder. Before you know it, this skeleton made of memories is rattling me.
I was six years old, dressed in my yellow shorts set--it had white rickrack tacked around the neck--standing in front of the pine bins that were full to overflowing with sweets, trying my hand at whistling in an attempt to get my mama's attention, hoping that she would look up from the black ledger book and its long columns of numbers that evidently foretold our future, wanting her to smile and say it was okay to eat a honey bun--my favorite food in the entire world--betting that she would not snarl at me to get the hell away from the sweet bins because didn't I know it was almost lunchtime, when Daddy staggered in through the front screen door and, without saying hello, proceeded on with that r
