I had never heard of Jamie Langston Turner until Bethany House sent me her newest novel, Winter Birds, to review. I am not on Ms. Turner’s payroll nor is Bethany House paying me. So, I can say without guile or reservations, Winter Birds is a fine book. The characters are interesting and multi-faceted. The story is about an old woman who’s preparing herself for death, so there aren’t many exciting plot developments. When exciting things do happen —an attempted kidnapping, murder, death of a child— the developments either take place “off stage” or they’re described in an understated sort of way that makes it clear that these are abnormal parts of an otherwise ordinary life and that the real excitement and interest is in what these and other occurences do to the characters involved.
I didn’t care much for the narrator of the novel at first. I don’t think I was supposed to like her. “A difficult old woman may be entertaining if you are not responsible for her upkeep.” Sophia Hess, the difficult old woman who writes these words, is not entertaining. Her bitterness is too apparent. She is, however, intriguing. I had to keep reading to figure out why Sophia was so bitter. What made her who she has become? Will she change? How? Will she die trapped in her loneliness and misanthropy?
My care is a responsibility that Patrick has taken upon himself willingly, though, as in most duties, with insufficient understanding of what it will entail.” Patrick and his wife, Rachel, are a childless middle-aged couple. They have given Patrick’s Aunt Sophia, age eighty, an apartment in their home and agreed to care for her until her death. Sophia thinks they are doing this good deed in return for the promise that she will leave them her money when she does die. Patrick and Rachel may have other motivations. Sophia thinks she has Patrick figured out. He talks too much. He is not as intelligent as he thinks he is. He is, according to Sophia, unknowingly racist and inconsiderate and unobservant.
Rachel is something more of a mystery to Sophia. Rachel, who has survived a terrible tragedy, is just good. Sophia keeps looking for the chinks in Rachel’s goodness, but she finds very few. As more and more people enter the lives of the three main characters, Sophia finds that she cannot just sit and wait to die. It’s not that easy, and she doesn’t really want to die. She doesn’t want to live either. She just wants to continue to get dessert every night. 🙂
Jamie Langston Turner is professor of creative writing and literature at Bob Jones University. Perhaps the negative reputation of BJU in some circles is the reason I’ve never heard of Ms. Turner. However, her books reminds me of Madeleine L’Engle, and that is high praise indeed. I plan to find her other books and read them: Some Wildflower in my Heart, No Dark Valley, and By the Light of a Thousand Stars. If those books live up to this one, I think I’ve found a new favorite author.
Oh, I almost forgot to mention that Winter Birds is chock-full of references to Shakespeare, a motif that made it lots of fun, and there’s also a recurring theme related to the birds that Sophia sees at her window birdfeeder. I’m not so interested in birds, but both the Shakespeare and the birds were nice ways of tying the story together and drawing analogies and comparisons between the characters and events in the novel and habits of the birds and the characters and thoughts of Shakespeare.
Read it. You’ll be glad you did.
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