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Joyce Hinnefeld has written a wonderful first novel. Love, loss, and the delicate beauty of nature are all explored within these richly written pages. Absorbing details about bird life fascinate, but at its core, In Hovering Flight is really about what it means to find your "wings." Recommended by Danielle, Powells.com
Synopses & Reviews
Review:
"In this provocative and page-turning debut novel, Hinnefeld (Tell Me Everything and Other Stories) recounts the life of bird-lover, environmental activist and artist Addie Sturmer Kavanagh. Opening with Addie's death from cancer, and her troublesome dying wish — 'clear orders for a brazenly illegal burial' — Hinnefeld's narrative migrates to Addie's days as a college art student, when she fell in love with birds and with the professor teaching her their biology, Tom Kavanagh. The early years of Addie and Tom's romance follows their birding and collaboration on an environmental, antiwar birding book destined to become a classic. Soon enough, though, the birth of their daughter, Scarlet, along with Addie's growing political and environmental awareness, relegate romance to the back seat. As Addie's creative vision shifts from avian homage to political tirade, the effects of her outspoken eco-outrage on her daughter, husband and two closest girlfriends are predictable but authentic, and at times moving. Hinnefeld's drama soars, especially in its depiction of Addie's complicated relationship with Scarlet, who's also trying to find her 'wings.' (Sept.)" Publishers Weekly (Copyright Reed Business Information, Inc.)
Review:
Americans spent $25 billion on books last year, about $6 billion less than they spent on bird watching. Publishers know this, of course, which is why we get a steady supply of updated and reconstituted guides from Sibley, Peterson, Audubon and their various descendants, executors and imitators. There's a natural sympathy between reading books and watching birds: The quiet, solitary pursuit of something... Washington Post Book Review (read the entire Washington Post review) beautiful and elusive in a novel or a forest requires the kind of patience and attention that our noisy culture rages against. But beyond this large assortment of illustrated guides, there's disappointingly little fiction for avid birders to read (compared to, say, the number of books about lawyers or serial killers or lawyers who are serial killers). If you're keeping a list — and if you're a serious bird watcher, you are — you've already read two very fine novels about John James Audubon: "Creation," by Katherine Govier, and "Audubon's Watch," by John Gregory Brown. Here's another one to look out for: a rare, delicate novel that takes its title from Roger Tory Peterson's description of the bobolink's song: "in hovering flight and quivering descent, ecstatic and bubbling, starting with low, reedy notes and rollicking upward." Peterson's words serve as an apt description of this story, too, with its strangely complex movement and wide emotional range. You won't need any special knowledge of birds to enjoy "In Hovering Flight," but it does require a birder's close attention because Joyce Hinnefeld is doing something difficult and intricate here. The story takes place in 2002 in a cottage along the New Jersey shore during the morning hours after the death of Addie Kavanagh. A renowned environmental activist and artist, Addie had given up her battle against cancer and chosen this spot to die, surrounded by her husband, her adult daughter and two women she's known since college. Exhausted and grieving, they're lulled into reminiscences, and we're drawn along the circuitous flight of their memories of Addie and her profound influence on their lives. For us, her story begins in 1965 when she takes an ornithology class from an unorthodox professor at a small Christian college in Pennsylvania. Dr. Tom Kavanagh quickly succumbs to Addie's charms, particularly the delightful entries in her bird-watching notebook: a kind of hybrid love letter, diary and field journal, illustrated with her captivating drawings. "I think I'm burning up with the same thing Audubon was burning with," she writes to her professor, without any regard for proper scientific form. "I am in love with birds, and I don't quite know what to do about it." You can't help but be caught up in the way Hinnefeld portrays their hunger for winged creatures, and for each other. "Tom Kavanagh's passion for birds did not frighten her," she writes. "What he had, and what she wanted, was clear to her from that first morning: a passion for birds — for truly hearing, seeing, knowing them — that made everything else in life seem trivial." Early in their marriage, they collaborate in creating a seminal work of the environmental and anti-war movement, a book called "A Prosody of Birds." Hinnefeld describes the book as something almost magical, "an odd blend of delicate artist's plates and dense poetic scansions of birdsongs ... an idiosyncratic hodgepodge, wildly disorganized and provocative." While they're creating this cult classic, they also have a daughter, Scarlet, named after the scarlet tanager. She adores her hippie parents even as she competes for their attention. Addie, in particular, is consumed with the kind of activist determination that eventually turns angry, despairing and relentlessly pessimistic. Even bird songs no longer give her joy; they only remind her that "breeding grounds are being decimated." It's a painful portrayal of the emotional toll that such awareness can wreak on a sensitive soul, falling into "bottomless despair at the plight of the earth." Who among us could function if we remembered every moment that we're being poisoned by "Paint. Gasoline. Seafood. Dental fillings, antiseptics, thermometers, blood-pressure gauges. Fluorescent bulbs"? In the hours after Addie's death, Scarlet, now 34, serves as the focal point of the novel while she considers "her puzzle of a mother." She realizes with that strange jolt that comes to us late in life that "there were things about her mother and father that she didn't know." Who was this ferociously determined woman with "her moral superiority, her absolute confidence ... all her raving ... her angry rants"? Who could live with such a mother — or now without her? Among its many other subjects, this story is a moving consideration of the emotional paradox of hospice. Without descending into the medical pornography of so much writing about illness nowadays, Hinnefeld explores the ordeal of modern cancer treatment, the bargaining with toxins, the statistical gambling, the unthinkable challenge of deciding whether to endure one more round. The movement of this novel is frankly a miracle, but a natural one — like the graceful flight of a bird, gliding along a path you couldn't trace if you tried. I can't imagine how the author conceived of this structure or had any idea where she was as she was creating it. But the more I read, the more impressed I became at her gently insistent exploration. This is a book so assured and confident that it gradually teaches you how to read it. Hinnefeld moves again and again through the lives of Tom, Addie and Scarlet, revisiting the same events, letting details slowly accrue, building our understanding of these characters and their complicated friendships. A certain degree of suspense builds up, but that's not really the point. "In Hovering Flight" is as quiet as twilight and just as lovely. Ron Charles is a senior editor of The Washington Post Book World. He can be reached at charlesr(at symbol)washpost.com. Reviewed by Ron Charles, Washington Post Book World (Copyright 2006 Washington Post Book World Service/Washington Post Writers Group)
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Synopsis:
At 34, Scarlet Kavanagh has the kind of homecoming no child wishes, a visit back to family and dear friends for the gentle passing of her mother, Addie, a famous bird artist and an even more infamous environmental activist. Though Addie and her husband, ornithologist Tom Kavanagh, have made their life in southeastern Pennsylvania, Addie has chosen to die at the New Jersey home of her dearest friend, Cora. This is because the Kavanaghs ramshackle cottage is filled with too much history and because, in the last ten years or so, and for reasons that are not entirely clear, even bird song has seemed to make Addie angry, or sad, or both. Now, in their final moments together, Scarlet hopes to put to rest the last tensions that have marked their relationship.
Through tender conversations with Cora and Lou, another of Addies dear friends, Scarlet slowly comes to peace with her mothers complicated life. But can she do the same with her own? Scarlet has carried a secret into these foggy days - a secret for Addie, one that involves Cora, too.
In its structure and style this novel follows in the tradition of writers like Virginia Woolf, Harriet Doerr, and Carol Shields: musical and dramatic, with myriad stories and voices. But the evocative language of this soaring novel is Hinnefelds own.
Wendy Robards, February 8, 2009 (view all comments by Wendy Robards)
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.
Was this comment helpful? | Yes | No (3 of 4 readers found this comment helpful)
Joyce Hinnefeld has written a wonderful first novel. Love, loss, and the delicate beauty of nature are all explored within these richly written pages. Absorbing details about bird life fascinate, but at its core, In Hovering Flight is really about what it means to find your "wings."
by Danielle
"Publishers Weekly Review"
by Publishers Weekly,
"In this provocative and page-turning debut novel, Hinnefeld (Tell Me Everything and Other Stories) recounts the life of bird-lover, environmental activist and artist Addie Sturmer Kavanagh. Opening with Addie's death from cancer, and her troublesome dying wish — 'clear orders for a brazenly illegal burial' — Hinnefeld's narrative migrates to Addie's days as a college art student, when she fell in love with birds and with the professor teaching her their biology, Tom Kavanagh. The early years of Addie and Tom's romance follows their birding and collaboration on an environmental, antiwar birding book destined to become a classic. Soon enough, though, the birth of their daughter, Scarlet, along with Addie's growing political and environmental awareness, relegate romance to the back seat. As Addie's creative vision shifts from avian homage to political tirade, the effects of her outspoken eco-outrage on her daughter, husband and two closest girlfriends are predictable but authentic, and at times moving. Hinnefeld's drama soars, especially in its depiction of Addie's complicated relationship with Scarlet, who's also trying to find her 'wings.' (Sept.)" Publishers Weekly (Copyright Reed Business Information, Inc.)
"Synopsis"
by Firebrand,
At 34, Scarlet Kavanagh has the kind of homecoming no child wishes, a visit back to family and dear friends for the gentle passing of her mother, Addie, a famous bird artist and an even more infamous environmental activist. Though Addie and her husband, ornithologist Tom Kavanagh, have made their life in southeastern Pennsylvania, Addie has chosen to die at the New Jersey home of her dearest friend, Cora. This is because the Kavanaghs ramshackle cottage is filled with too much history and because, in the last ten years or so, and for reasons that are not entirely clear, even bird song has seemed to make Addie angry, or sad, or both. Now, in their final moments together, Scarlet hopes to put to rest the last tensions that have marked their relationship.
Through tender conversations with Cora and Lou, another of Addies dear friends, Scarlet slowly comes to peace with her mothers complicated life. But can she do the same with her own? Scarlet has carried a secret into these foggy days - a secret for Addie, one that involves Cora, too.
In its structure and style this novel follows in the tradition of writers like Virginia Woolf, Harriet Doerr, and Carol Shields: musical and dramatic, with myriad stories and voices. But the evocative language of this soaring novel is Hinnefelds own.
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