Two neurologists are engaged in divergent quests: one to locate the
source of memory and the other to study speech patterns in humans by
analyzing and manipulating bird vocalization. Both men use experiments
on live songbirds in a laboratory on a university campus, and both
become romantically intertwined with a woman lab assistant who takes
issue with their methods. Overshadowing this trio are significant
figures from their individual pasts--a distant mother, a former
girlfriend, a best friend and ornithological expert who dies tragically
while conducting field research in the Amazon, and a mentor turned lover
and nemesis. This is a subtly layered novel rich in natural description
and sense of place that grapples with serious philosophical and moral
themes, peopled by characters who must confront the emotional truths in
their lives in order to be released from their own, individual cage