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About
Having taken great risks--to immigrate to America, to take monastic vows--Bengali physician Meena Chatterjee and Brother Flavian are each seeking safety and security when they encounter Johnny Faye, a Vietnam vet, free spirit, and expert marijuana farmer. Amid the fields and forests of a Trappist monastery, Johnny Faye patiently cultivates Meena's and Flavian's capacity for faith, transforming all they thought they knew about duty and desire. In turn they offer him an experience of civilization other than war and chaos. But Johnny Faye's law-breaking sets him against a district attorney for whom the law is a tool for ambition rather than justice. Their confrontation leads to a harrowing reckoning that ensnares Dr. Chatterjee and Brother Flavian, who must make a life-or-death choice between an act of justice that may precipitate their ruin or a betrayal that offers salvation.
Inspired by the real-life state police kidnapping and murder of a legendary storyteller and petty criminal, The Man Who Loved Birds engages pressing contemporary issues through a timeless narrative of ill-fated romance. Celebrated author Fenton Johnson has woven a seamless, haunting fable exploring the eternal conflicts between free will and destiny, politics and nature, the power of law and the power of love.
Inspired by the real-life state police kidnapping and murder of a legendary storyteller and petty criminal, The Man Who Loved Birds engages pressing contemporary issues through a timeless narrative of ill-fated romance. Celebrated author Fenton Johnson has woven a seamless, haunting fable exploring the eternal conflicts between free will and destiny, politics and nature, the power of law and the power of love.
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Reviews
"The Man Who Loved Birds brings a clear eye and unnerving sensibility to bear on how we live now, while looking at small-town life in Kentucky during the Reagan years. This bird lover-sometimes a Jesus figure, other times a Bacchus, most times just a regular guy-will imprint himself on your heart. A wonderful novel. Erudite, intelligent, and just as important, humane."
Rabih Alameddine, author of National Book Award finalist An Unnecessary Woman
"The Man Who Loved Birds is a wonderful novel, full-hearted and rollicking and serious. The corrupt and the pure of heart can't get out of each other's way in this wild mix of monks, dope growers, politicians, and one good doctor-set in a Kentucky landscape that is the verdant crossroads of greed and desire."
Joan Silber, author of Fools
"The Man Who Loved Birds is a beautiful, improbable love story (the best kind) set in a timeless Eden called rural Kentucky as it slides into the modern era. Old ways clash with new, faith meets doubt, greed meets charity, immigrant adjusts to native, and native to exotic. Johnson twins nature and sexual awakening with the intensity of D. H. Lawrence. It's a bold undertaking, and only a native of
Clark Blaise, author of Time Lord and Lunar Attractions
Extended Details
- SeriesKentucky Voices