I can’t thank my husband, Matt McGunigle, enough. This book would not exist without his belief in me. Thanks, too, to my kids, Arin and Hannah, for being the loudest members of my cheering section. I love you all so much.
Thanks to all my friends, on and off line, for your support, with special hugs to Kate Anger, Denise and Dave Brown, Jennifer Calkins, Lucia Dick, Chris Fullerton, Christian Harder, Jianda Johnson, Vicki Kelley, Donna Kennedy (Miss Salton Sea, herself!), Catherine Kineavy, Judy Kronenfeld, Kristin Kucia-Stauder, Caroline Leavitt, Kris Lovekin, Kathryn Morton, Bernadette Murphy, Cati Porter, Sakada, Sue William Silverman, Jacque Smillie, Rob Stauder, Susan Straight, Katherine Thomerson, Greg Walloch, Valerie Carlene, Susan Ito, Keta Hodgson, Linda Rigel, Lakin Khan, Greg Hyduke, Mary Sharratt, Alex Lang, Liz Newman, all my friends and beloved professors from the Johnston Center at the University of Redlands, the folks at Readerville, all writer-mamas and everyone at MYWG.
Thanks to Sonja Johnson for participating in my first dead bird ritual when we were in first grade. Thanks to the strep germs that gave me fever dreams that changed the course of the novel. Thanks to the dead crow that appeared on my patio just when I was ready to throw the story away.
Thanks to folks who gave me the lowdown about the Salton Sea situation—Norm Niver of the Salton Sea Citizens Advisory Panel, Jake Vasquez of the Salton Sea National Wildlife Refuge, and Linda York of the Coachella Valley Wild Bird Center. Your firsthand perspective was invaluable. Thanks to the documentary The Women Outside by J.T. Takagi and Hye Jung Park for first alerting me to the plight of women on U.S. military bases in Korea; thanks to Katharine Moon’s book Sex Among Allies for deepening my understanding.
Thanks to the great people at James Levine Communications, especially my agent, Arielle Eckstut, for being such a marvelous force of nature (as well as a supreme mensch!). Thanks to Terry Karten and Andrew Proctor at HarperCollins for all of your wisdom and guidance and enthusiasm; I can’t believe my good fortune in getting to work with you. Thanks to my posse at Harper-SanFrancisco and their continuing beneficence—Renee Sedliar and Calla Devlin, you are goddesses.
I am deeply, deeply, grateful to everyone associated with the Bellwether Prize. Barbara Kingsolver, Toni Morrison, and Maxine Hong Kingston have all been longtime idols for me, models for how to serve as a writer in the real world, how to balance art and social responsibility. To be able to acknowledge them here makes me weak in the knees. Thanks to all of you for your generosity in your work and in your life. I am humbled to have been given this incredible honor.
Kamsahamnida.
About the Author
GAYLE BRANDEIS is the author of Fruitflesh: Seeds of Inspiration for Women Who Write. Her work has appeared in Salon and HipMama, among other publications. She lives in Riverside, California, with her husband and two children. The Book of Dead Birds is her first novel.
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Praise for The Book of Dead Birds
“A uniquely inventive novel…. How splendidly the author hasbalanced art with environmental obligation…. It is exciting in literary circles when a first-time novelist does as well as Brandeis does with The Book of Dead Birds.”
—Rocky Mountain News
“What a shimmering and accomplished first novel! The landscapes of Korea and southern California, and the territories of a mother’s fierce dreams and her daughter’s tentative flights, are all rendered with graceful language and stark, affecting honesty.”
—Susan Straight, author of Highwire Moon
“The vivid tale of a woman learning to save and cherish life.”
—San Francisco Chronicle
“A moving and perceptive first novel.”
—O, the Oprah Magazine
“The Book of Dead Birds is a story of healing—a skillful, textured weaving of dark and light.”
—Donna M. Gershten, author of Kissing the Virgin’s Mouth
“An emotional story forged in crystalline prose…. Brandeis channels Ava with the precision of a poet, creating an elegant tale…in which beauty is rendered from brutal sources.”
—Bust magazine
“A sad, funny debut…. The plight of the mother and daughter is heartbreaking…. A wrenching tale.”
—Kirkus Reviews
“Brandeis has a poet’s ear for the music of language…[her] characters and their fledgling flights of the heart stay with readers long after the book is closed and set aside.”
—January magazine
BOOKS BY THE SAME AUTHOR
Dictionary Poems
Fruitflesh: Seeds of Inspiration for Women Who Write
Copyright
Grateful thanks for permission to include the following previously published material:
“Animal Crackers in my Soup,” by Ted Koehler, Irving Caesar, and Ray Henderson. © 1935 (Renewed) Movietone Music Corporation. All rights for Movietone Music Corporation assigned to WB Music Corp. All rights for Extended Renewal Term in U.S. administered by WB Music Corp., Ted Koehler Music, and Ray Henderson Music Company. All rights reserved. Used by permission, Warner Bros. Publications U.S. Inc., Miami, FL 33014.
Excerpt from “Bird: A Memoir” by Susan Mitchell, Erotikon. Copyright © 2000 by Susan Mitchell. Reprinted by permission of HarperCollins Publishers, Inc.
“Estonia swans starving in ice-locked waters” article reprinted with permission of The Associated Press.
Excerpt from Songs of the Kisaeng, Constantine Contogenis and Wolhee Choe, translators. Copyright © 1997 by Constantine Contogenis and Wolhee Choe. Reprinted by permission of BOA Editions, Ltd.
THE BOOK OF DEAD BIRDS. Copyright © 2003 by Gayle Brandeis. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.
Mobipocket Reader January 2007 ISBN 978-0-06-135576-9
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