The Bird House

http://iwriteinbooks.wordpress.com/2011/03/07/the-bird-house-kelly-simmons/

All families have secrets; some are just more secret than others.

After a lifetime of disappointment and tragedy, Ann Biddle has found a small amount of peace in reconnecting with her eight year old grand-daughter, Ellie. Though Ann is in her golden twilight, a school project and an overzealous daughter-in-law begin to decode the lock on what Ann has kept hidden for years. Suddenly, less than golden past threatens to seep forward from the mist and dissipate all that she currently holds dear.

Though the story is told through Ann’s journal entries, forty years apart, the book feels comfortable and open, like a more traditional narration. I often find journal based show more books or those heavily weighted with letters to be clunky and hard to relate to. Ann is an emotional, relatable narrator, full of wonderful and dark things. Through family loss, her own cancer and not-so-torrid affairs, her history is one that is one part fictional, one part too easily swallowed as “just life”.

The pure feeling felt throughout the book was very different from I had expected going in to the reading. Having just finished Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakthrough (also intertwining time and generations, albeit very differently), I thought I might be in for a less exciting ride. This, thankfully, was not the case. I was blown away by the subtleties in Ann’s storytelling, even as she crossed into dark waters, past and present.

Though two generations older than I am, Ann spoke to my inner mom and inner woman in a way I wasn’t sure someone hitting her seventies would be able to. All around, a great read, though tough in some spots, this is a book for anyone who likes a good story or for anyone who believes that a normal, happy family has more to tell than meets the eye. show less

First Sentence: Beneath the surface of any problem, if you scrabble a bit, you'll find a secret.

The book description makes it sound like the protagonist is a likable person. She isn't. She's bitter; she seems to have resented and maybe even disliked her children when they were small; she was unfaithful to her husband, and she is full of pettiness.

In spite of this, this novel is a tightly-woven tale that swings from past to present - a dark family drama that pits Ann, 70 years old, a graduate of Bryn Mawr and a Main Line fixture, against her daughter-in-law Tinsley, an over-protective mother to Ellie, Ann's only grandchild from her remaining son, Tom.

As Ellie begins to spend more time with Ann working on a generational family project for show more school, Tinsley seems to go out of her way to keep them from doing so. Ellie chooses bird houses as the theme, having seen them in old photographs and one currently in Ann's tree branches and Tinsley seems to go out of her way to discredit Ann as an influence on "her" 8-year-old daughter. Through their interplay, and the memories that Ann begins to bring to the surface, we see how Ann's circumstances were greatly reduced as a child when her father left her mother, taking all of her mother's money with him through fraud. We read about generations of faithlessness and it's impact, and we learn about Emma, Ann's daughter, who tragically died when she was young. As the battle of wills heats up between Ann and Tinsley, Tom ends up in the hospital with a heart issue at 39 years old, and memories of Theo, his father, dead of a heart attack while playing tennis, are forcefully brought to the surface.

Within this family circle, more secrets are brought out and played on, and in spite of my dislike for Ann, I still experienced a sense of justice in her small victories.

Character-driven and rather intense, this author manages to pull the reader into the battle. Which side will you pick?

QUOTES

Forty years ago, my young daughter died because of something I did.

What a waste, to be chaste in high school. What silly fools we were. Were we saving ourselves for infidelity, for cheating and lies?

I sighed. These were my coworkers - the toddler, the baby. This was my job - the meals, the dishes, the diapers, the tantrums. The world's tiniest, most claustrophobic factory. The hours were unbearable and the conditions were apparently not going to improve.

Writing: 5 out of 5 stars
Plot: 4 out of 5 stars
Characters: 4 out of 5 stars
Reading Immersion: 4 out 5 stars

BOOK RATING: 4.25 out of 5 stars show less

What is true? What is real? What is forgotten and what can never be erased? In a lifetime of good intentions we all have our share of secrets, regrets, and undiscovered passions. And digging through old letters, connecting the importance of a ring with something said long ago, really looking at what is around you, well, it can change your entire view of your world.

The Bird House by Kelly Simmons (Washington Square Press) takes the reader on a mesmerizing journey into one woman’s past and beyond in this sparkling and engrossing novel you’ll want to recommend to everyone you know. The characters are real, the situations at once startling yet believable. I found myself glad that I couldn’t sleep last night, because that meant I could show more get back to this novel and read it through to the end. How many novels are good enough for that? After finishing the last page I had that “I just read something truly amazing” feeling. The lingering of images and emotions. The sadness, as if parting from a very dear friend….

Simmons writes of a granddaughter who is brutally honest, and who needs to do a family heritage project with her grandmother. She takes us into the head of Ann, a seventy-something woman of high intelligence and so-so memory, who skips us back and forth through time. Her past is a life full of promise, then terrible loss and guilt. In her present Ann finds her heart being won over by her granddaughter, a child who asks all the wrong questions in just the right way. And Ann finds answers she hadn’t even known she was seeking.

The story is at once heart-wrenching and hilarious. Ann has a tart tongue and a sharp eye, making her the ideal narrator casting a witty eye on everything from egocentric architects, Main Line Philadelphia elite, the claustrophobic existence of a new mother, the horrors of those tacky birthday party activity joints, and the temptations of a forbidden lover.

The author quickly envelops you with sharp imagery, true tension, mystery, passion and deeply-felt love. Her writing reminds me of Anne Tyler’s: amazingly brilliant, yet so accessible.

So read The Bird House, love it, share it. Your friends will be glad you did! Very highly recommended. show less

A textured, intelligent book about a grandmother on the edge of Alzheimer's relaying family history and secrets to a granddaughter on their special days and hours together. While the child, Ellie, works on a project with Grandma Ann, memories surface via trunks in the attic, tying the generations together in unexpected ways. Thought-provoking. There is much between the lines subtly urging readers to consider various aspects of life and relationships, relatives, and aging and much more. The author has created a spunky grandma, a smart and curious youngster, and parents of the child who worry too much about her and are beginning to see reasons to worry about Grandma Ann.

Plenty of gentle, touching humor and much more. I thoroughly enjoyed show more this book. Loved the characters and that they are. Unpretentious. A really lovely read. show less

This is one of those books I'm not even sure where to begin. Just when you think you have gotten to the crux of the situation in this one, the author pulls another surprise out of her bag of tricks. I read this in one sitting, it reads quickly, easily and elegantly. The writing is great, the plotting is amazing and the characters are intriguing. What more can you ask for in a book?

The Bird House, at it's core is about family secrets. We get to see these secrets through the eyes of Ann who is a grandmother now and trying to connect with her granddaughter, Ellie through a school project at first and then just trying to keep the connection going. Ann has been through a lot as we read her journal in the present and back in the 60s as well. show more The journal entries shed light on Ann's life as she is struggling with the family secrets and with the dementia that is starting to creep into her life.

And it seems like the family secrets are destined to keep on as Ann learns things about her daughter-in-law and her son as well, through Ellie and through everyday life. The insights are what make this book. The reader gets a glimpse of everything on the surface, how life looks to others and to ourselves at the time we are living it. Then the insight of reading the journal 40 years later comes into play or seeing the life through the eyes of child, really gets to the heart of what is going on. I loved the insight. I loved how it made all the lives that are intertwined in this book three-dimensional and something you could see from several sides. The lives come to life on the pages of the book. You feel for each character. Even when something seems totally wrong, you can see something in it that makes you understand why the character did what they did.

The characters in this book came to life for me, especially Ann and Ellie, who the book focuses on. Ann's journal entries really help you see the whole person even as she is starting to forget things as she is getting older. Ellie is a great foil to the aging Ann, not just in the age difference, but in the fact that while Ann is struggling to understand, Ellie just takes things as she sees them and doesn't look any further than that. And sometimes that is what we need to do as Ann learns, just take things at face value. I felt close to both of these characters and felt the connection that I like to have when I read books.

Ms. Simmons has a true gift for writing this type of novel. I look forward to going back and reading Standing Still now as well. The Bird House to me was amazing, and what I loved even more is it is written on an easy to understand level. No lofty language or things you really have to study to understand. No, The Bird House is written as real life and that is what makes the book a wonderful book, to me. show less

Even though Kelly Simmons wrote The Bird House so that story can switch back and forth between 2010 and 1967, this book was easy to keep the time periods separate. There are clues in the chapters on 1967 that answer the questions the Ann Biddle had in 2010. This book is full of symbolism and straight forward clear writing. I love the author's style and know that story would succeed if Ann was not the sole narrator.

Ann Biddle has a family secret and as soon as I read that I knew that I wanted to find out the truth. My family on both sides have secrets. I have mild cognitive impairment so I have memory problems too. So I immediately connected with this story. Ann Biddle's memory is failing and she worries about a death in the past because show more she cannot remember the important parts of truth connected to the death. The author not only keeps you reading even when you really don't have the time but she has developed fascinating characters in her story.

Ann spends time with her granddaughter Ellie who is 8 years old, smart, full of life and perceptive. It seems that all her other relationships were gone, her husband died in the past, her mother and father are long gone. So she and Ellie explore family stories. Ann is selective about what she tells Ellie but sometimes things happen to jolt Ann's memory back. They care about each other. Ann reminds me of my grandmother when she was slipping dementia.

I highly recommend reading this book. show less

I liked Bird House, however it touched a cord..I am in my 60's and am having memory problems as well as health. Maybe it was just too real, which says something for how well Bird House is written. Until now, I would have not believed that all families had secrets, but they are coming home in my family too. We sit with a room full of secrets and I so identified with Annie. I loved Standing Still, and Bird House comes in second.