Winner of the 2022 Governor's Arts Award
A 2022 Reading the West Award Finalist
A Refinery29 Best New Book to Read in 2021
From Deirdre McNamer, a masterful exploration of the rich and hidden
facets of human character, as illuminated by the mysterious connections
among the residents of a senior residence in Montana.
At the deteriorating Pheasant Run, the occupants keep their secrets and
sadnesses locked tight behind closed apartment doors. Kind Leo Umberti,
formerly an insurance agent, now quietly spends his days painting
abstract landscapes and mourning a long-ago loss. Down the hall, retired
professor Rydell Clovis tries desperately to stay fit enough to restart
a career in academia. Cassie McMackin, on the same floor, has seemingly
lost everything--her husband and only child dead within months of each
other--leaving her loosely tethered to this world. And a few doors away,
her friend, Viola Six, is convinced of a criminal conspiracy involving
the building's widely disliked manager, Herbie Bonebright. Cassie and
Viola dream of leaving their unhappy lives behind, but one woman's plan
is interrupted--and the other's unexpectedly set into motion--when a
fire breaks out in Herbie's apartment.
Called to investigate is the city's chief fire inspector. With a gift
and a passion for sorting out the mysteries of flame, Lander Maki finds
the fire itself, and the circumstances around it, highly suspicious.
Viola has disappeared. So has Herbie. And a troubled teen, Clayton
Spooner, was glimpsed fleeing the scene. In trying to fit together the
pieces of this complicated puzzle, Lander finds himself learning more
than expected about human nature and about personal and corporate greed
as it is visited upon the vulnerable.
Beautifully written and long awaited, from a writer "with extraordinary
emotional acuity and with a keen sense of the small detail that says it
all" (Chicago Tribune), Aviary weaves a compelling tapestry of
crisis, grief, and the mysteries of memory and old age.
