I love stories about birds, about families, about the making of art. This novel covers all 3...I also appreciate writing that demonstrates a deep love of words, and again, I found that in this lovely book. The plot meandered a little bit at times, and I also find it hard to connect with characters who call their parents by their first names. Overall, however, a fine read. ( )

In the first chapter of In Hovering Flight poet Scarlet Kavanagh arrives at the New Jersey shore home of her mother’s closest friend Cora to sit with her mother Addie as she dies. Scarlet’s father, a professor of ornithology at a small college in southern Pennsylvania, and Lou - another of her mother’s friends are also present. Although the novel begins with Addie’s death, it is the lives of these characters, not the death of Addie, which the reader becomes enthralled with in this delicately unfolding novel about love and loss.

Addie Strumer Kavanagh is a college student when she meets Tom Kavanagh - her professor in Biology of the Birds. Addie’s love of drawing birds parallels Tom’s fascination with bird song, and when they marry they live in a small cabin in the Pennsylvania woods full of birds and close to bubbling creeks. When their daughter is born, she is named for the Scarlet Tanager which Addie has grown to love. Addie’s friends, Cora and Lou, move in and out of Tom and Addie’s lives - having children of their own and pursuing their own dreams, and yet sustaining a connection with each other. As in all great stories, the characters face challenges and grow and change through the years - Addie becomes obsessed with environmentalism and activism, Cora struggles to raise a child with autism, Tom must live with a mistake, Lou’s choice of men is never right, and beautiful Scarlet moves from girlhood to womanhood with all the struggles one might expect of a creative and sensitive child.

In Hovering Flight is a beautifully wrought and soothing story about what it means to love another, about the flaws in relationships and how they are sustained despite these flaws. The novel is also about the ambivalent relationship between mother and daughter. Addie and Scarlet’s relationship is one of subtle conflict, doubt, awe, and ultimately deep love.

Throughout the novel, Hinnefeld wraps the themes of friendship, nature, the fragility of eco-systems, and art. These themes inspire the characters and bind them to each other. Hinnefeld’s writing is poetic, sensitive and evocative. I was touched by the very real struggles of her characters - their failed dreams, their conflicted love for each other, their doubts and triumphs. This debut novel is simply a joy to read - one which resonates with the songs of birds and the grace of the human spirit.

Highly recommended. ( )

Addie and Tom Kavanagh met in the mid-sixties, when she was a student in his Biology of the Birds class with her best girlfriends, Cora & Lou. She was entranced by Tom that very first lecture, an introduction to the wonder of the world of birds.

"Hollow bones. Imagine what this means. Strength and lightness. Flight and surety. They hover too magnificently between the practical and the whimsical, the rational and the exquisitely nonsensical, for any student of their physiology and habitat and history to dare to linger too long at either pole, the strictly 'scientific' of the purely 'poetic'."

When Addie fell for Tom she also fell for the birds and birdsong that he so loved. She was an accomplished artist and in the early days of their marriage they collaborated on Tom's one and only book, "A Prosody of Birds," for which Addie did the illustrations and gained some recognition for her work.

But as the years pass, Addie finds that she can't appreciate the wonders of the natural world because she is constantly worn down by the worry that humans are destroying it at every turn. Having their only daughter, Scarlet, serves to deepen Addie's concern for the environment and she becomes involved with extremists. Her activities create a distance between her and her family and friends who are hard pressed to understand her single-minded purpose.

When Addie is dying of breast cancer, her family and friends gather at Cora's house on the Jersey shore. Cora's home has been a refuge for the whole family in the last twenty years. Cora has provided caring friendship to both Addie and Tom and has played a very maternal role in Scarlet's life. Though she loved her child very much, the kind of mothering care Cora provided to Scarlet seemed to be the thing missing in Scarlet's relationship with Addie.

In these last days of Addie's life, the complex history and relationships of these individuals will be relived. A tangled web of emotions and motivations exist between this group of people. But, just as Addie was their common denominator in life, her death brings clarity and healing in ways that none of them can imagine.

This is a beautifully written, richly layered novel. Joyce Hinnefeld has painted a realistic and powerful story about the ways that relationships change over time, between husband and wife, parent and child, even close friends. And her lovely, lyrical prose make it a book that is not to be missed. ( )

The characters in Joyce Hinnefeld’s first novel, In Hovering Flight, fall into two teams that could be called “the Artists” and “the Suits.” The Artists include the heroine, Addie Sturmer Kavanagh, an avid birder, artist, and environmental activist; her husband Tom, a literature-loving ornithology professor; their daughter Scarlet, a poet; Addie’s two best friends; and various supporters, fans, and hangers-on. The Suits include Addie’s archenemy, a big-shot land developer; corporations; Republican Senators; publishers; college administrators; and the like.

All these characters come into play, directly or through recollection, as Addie’s loved ones gather to mourn her recent death and consider her dying wishes, some of which are unorthodox or even illegal. Hinnefeld’s writing is elegant and she tells an emotionally complex, multi-layered tale.

The problem is that the Artists are all good and the Suits are all bad. Sure, there is some variation and even tension among the Artists themselves. There is the acknowledgement that Addie’s “moral superiority” puts off her loved ones; that some of her ardor may stem from untreated depression rather than healthy concern; and that her fellow activists may be too extreme. But the Artists are fundamentally right in their interests and outlook. The Suits (none fleshed out as characters) range from evil fiends to buffoons. There is absolutely no question about which team we are expected to root for.

Just as the issues are clear to Hinnefeld, team membership is as well. There is no crossover, except as object lessons. For example, the scientific side of Tom’s profession and character is shown in poor contrast to Tom as a writer, musician, and lover of bird songs. Likewise, although Scarlet’s first love Bobby suffers adolescent tragedy, it is his involvement with corporate America that brings him close to death – both slowly with alcohol and quickly with an office in the World Trade Center on 9/11. Bobby is redeemed only when he abandons the world of the Suits and returns to the Artists’ fold.

Hinnefeld means well, that is clear. In Hovering Flight is an earnest novel dealing with heavy subjects (cancer, death, environmental degradation, art, infidelity, autism, motherhood, and suicide, for instance). But Hinnefeld offers no sugar to help the medicine go down. The book is devoid of any humor: there are no jokes, quips, or even wry observations. The book takes itself too seriously and comes across as the same sort of smug, self-righteous lecture Addie herself was wont to give. ( )