Looking After Pigeon by Maud Carol Markson

Release date: 2009 / 190 pages

Synopsis (from front cover): One spring day in New York City, five-year-old Pigeon’s father disappears, leaving her to face a new and bewildering life with her mother and older siblings in an uncle’s house on the Jersey shore.

First line: “Memory is an odd thing.”

Review:  I’m at a bit of a loss with this review!  I did enjoy it –very much — and felt as if I knew Pigeon quite well throughout the novel.  I even missed her voice inside my head when I finished… and wondered for days how she was doing, what she was thinking about, what her adulthood would be like…   But I had such a sense of vertigo and foreboding throughout much of my reading that I can’t help but begin my review with what troubled me most.

Pigeon, the narrator, is five years old, yet she is left alone much of the time.  This seems so unbelievably irresponsible on the part of her mother that I had a hard time finding Joan (the mother) remotely sympathetic.  Now, she is not a particularly likeable character to begin with, but I simply can’t imagine a five-year-old fending for herself day after day –  even once in New York City!  

The novel was told in the first person, but Pigeon’s voice was not that of a five-year-old, so I was relieved when the older Pigeon would occasionally make a brief appearance to remind us that she was now an adult reflecting on a long ago past:

“Unlike other children, I seemed immune to the contagious illnesses that flourished among schools and playgrounds; I was invariably in good health.  Instead, I was susceptible to the varying moods of those around me. I picked them up — the highs and lows — as easily as others did the chicken pox or winter colds. I am still that way — with coworkers, friends, lovers. But most of all my family.”

I think I would have enjoyed even more of the older Pigeon’s perspective – but not at the exclusion of the young Pigeon.  This novel is quite short and could have been a bit longer, honestly.  I would have enjoyed reading more about Pigeon’s siblings — Dove’s future with Stan, Robin’s thoughts throughout that summer.  Robin is truly the hero of this novel – caring for his little sister in ways that no one else thinks to do — but Robin is only 8 years old himself! 

Beyond feeling unbalanced by the neglect of the children, my other emotion was sadness.  Really, beyond “sad” — tragic is more appropriate.  I know there must be children left to fend for themselves in the world, beyond the eye of social services…  And the effects of this abandonment on Pigeon — who focuses more on her absent father’s abandonment than the daily neglect of her mother — is expressed by an adult reluctance to accept love or intimacy:

“…it seemed to me then that we were often guilty of speaking that way in our family, as if our lives were all so segmented that what was said by one person could not possibly affect anyone else in the room. Like words held within cartoon balloons, only the characters were all from different comic strips, different pages…

Perhaps our mother knew something that I am unwilling to grasp even today — that love, although powerful and consuming, is never given in the right doses.  It is either controlling and too binding, relinquinshed begrudgingly as if it were a painful sacrifice, or doled out in such a haphazard fashion that one is left bewildered, lost.”

I must say that I did connect with Pigeon and the novel had a very satisfying narrative pace — quick and engaging.  In fact, I connected so much with Pigeon that I wanted to find her and Robin a new family — I knew that their older sister, Dove, would be fine.  I guess I figured Robin and Pigeon would be fine, too, but was certainly irritated that they had to find this safety without any help from the significant, shockingly selfish adults in their lives.  So, if you are willing to suspend your disbelief a bit and embrace a darling character, drop me a comment and I will choose a lucky winner by Saturday!

Thanks to Trisha and Lisa for asking to me part of this tour (and for the free book!).  

Wednesday, October 21st: Dolce Bellezza

Monday, October 26th: A Sea of Books

Tuesday, October 27th: Literate Housewife

Thursday, October 29th: Steph and Tony Investigate

Monday, November 2nd: A Reader’s Journal

Tuesday, November 3rd: The Scholastic Scribe

Wednesday, November 4th: Raging Bibliomania

Monday, November 9th: Clever Girl Goes Blog

Thursday, November 12th: Caribousmom

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TLC Tours Presents: Looking After Pigeon

So, what do you think?  How many have you read already?  Which ones are you hoping to read soon?  Also, here is a link to the Millions ”honorable mentions.”

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Best Books of the Millenium?

Three Junes by Julia Glass

Release date/ Length: 2002 / 353 pages 

Synopsis (from jacket cover): Love in its limitless forms — between husband and wife, between lovers, between people and animals, between parents and children — is the force that moves these characters’ lives, which collide again, in yet another June, over a Long Island dinner table.

First line: Paul chose Greece for its predictable whiteness: the blanching heat by day, the rush of starts at night, the glint of the lime-washed houses crowding its coast. Blinding, searing, somnolent, fossilized Greece.

Review:  My mother loaned me this novel months — probably years — ago, with the warning that she did not enjoy it very much…  So, I threw it in my “cabin” dufflebag as an emergency read, in case I ever found myself without a book.  Well, this never happened (not surprisingly), so this past week I decided to give it a go.  This novel is so exquisitely well-written, yet I found it somewhat grueling and was so glad to be finished. 

I felt so very impatient with the characters, the narrative pacing, the setting even.  I’m afraid that beyond the beautiful prose, I somehow missed the magic of this award-winning novel.  I did not connect with any of the characters — and the quite long second section (there are three) focused on my least likeable character from the previous section.  I read the synopsis after I finished and found the primary character described as “loveable,” so I know I missed something significant in my reading. 

However, beginning with the first two lines (above) there are passages that stunned me with their beauty:

Time plays like an accordion in the way it can stretch out and compress itself in a thousand melodic ways. Months on end may pass blindingly in a quick series of chords, open-shut, together-apart; and then a single melancholy week may seem like a year’s pining, one long unfolding note.

I did not wonder if what his absence would spare me was the exhaustion of a longing so relentless it had become nearly unconscious, as if I had failed to realize that the water I drank was salty, always salty.

There is no doubt that Glass can write — and I loved The Whole World Over so much (but I See You Everywhere not as much) — however, this National Book Award winning novel just left me cold.  I hope others have read this, too, and can share their experiences.  I would like to be “brought around” if possible!

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The Sunday Salon: Three Junes

And the winner of Home Repair is… Sandi!

No worries, I just finished a couple more winners that I will be giving away very soon!

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Winners of SuperFreakonomics and Home Repair!

photo credit: Ian Muttoo

Happy Friday!!  Here’s the latest literary tidbits I found interesting:

• A list of difficult books to read
• Prequel to Pride and Prejudice and Zombies due next spring
• What do teens want to read?
• Ang Lee and the Life of Pi

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Friday Finds: November 6th