Synopses & Reviews
Margret Snow is the quintessential New York woman. She dresses the windows of Saks Fifth Avenue by day and mingles in the downtown art world by night, always searching for her niche in a city intent on capturing The Next Big Thing as it flies into view. Married to Charles, a professor at Columbia, and living on the Upper West Side, the backdrop to Margrets life is made up of the poetic rhythms and colors of the Manhattan day: slow-running buses, the gray morning light striking the Hudson, the winter landscape of Riverside Park, the endless round of gallery openings, cocktail parties and grand dinners in the palatial apartments on Manhattans upper east side. Against this metropolitan whirl, Margret and Charles pursue a lifelong hobby of bird watching, a passion for which was kindled by her grandfather during long-past summers near the shore in Gloucester, Massachusetts. As they shuttle between their Manhattan apartment, birding in the city's parks, and weekends out of town in their house near Cape May, a violent upheaval pushes Margret beyond the boundaries of her hobby. Overnight, she becomes an art world sensation and just as suddenly has fame ripped from her. As Laura Jacobs proved in her first novel, "Women About Town", she understands the natural habitat of the New York Woman in all its complexity. In The Bird Catcher, her second, she moves deeper into that territory with the story of a remarkable woman who is as rare and special as the birds that fill the skies above her.
Review
Advance Praise for The Bird Catcher:
"Laura Jacobs is an urban miniaturist. In her sleek, pitch-perfect second novel, The Bird Catcher, she lavishes delectable attention on the subtle distinctions wrought by taste, class, money, and style in the city on which she trains her eagle eye. But there is nothing diminutive in her vision: Under the force of her piercing, halogen-bright gaze, the world cracks open, large and luminous. . . . One of the novel's keenest pleasures is watching Margret's transformation from passive spectator to active creator . . . No minor feat, this, and without sounding a single wrong note, Jacobs orchestrates her character's sonata as expansively and dramatically as a symphony whose strains linger on, long after the last page has been turned." --Bookforum
". . . Margret moves in rarefied Manhattan circles populated with artists, dancers, and collectors. The parties and guests glitter, conversations soar. . . . Jacobs presents a measured and compelling yet nonlinear narrative so that readers encounter Margret's life in pieces. And it is well worth the effort to get to know her. Jacobs' incisive writing captures her characters' moods, while her graceful descriptions of the birds that inspire her protagonist illuminate the story."--Booklist
"An enchanting tick for the Reader's Life List."--Vanity Fair
"Jacobs explores, with pitch-perfect accuracy, both the surface layer of contemporary urban life, and the wild, almost dumb depths of the psyche, where humans confer with birds, and where art, myth and fairytale are born. Margret, the book's grieving heroine, will haunt readers long after her compulsively readable story has come to an end."- Elizabeth Kendall, author of Autobiography of A Wardrobe and American Daughter
"Intricately detailing the lengths to which a woman must go to heal from a great loss, Laura Jacobs mesmerizes with her haunting prose and thoroughly engrossing subject matter. The Birdcatcher is one of those reads you cannot put down, nor forget once you have finished.” - Amy Scheibe, author of What Do You Do all Day?
“Birds are transformed into art in this wise novel of rebirth, but they are also transforming - people are brought back to imaginative and spiritual life through contact with them, and it is part of the magic of this urban story that it has roots deep in the mystery of the natural world.” - Jonathan Rosen, author of The Life of the Skies: Birding at the End of NaturePraise for Women About Town:"Jacobs writes with intelligence, grace, and an utterly female sensibility."--People Magazine
"[An] engaging debut novel...Exquisite."--The Washington Post
"Jane Austen meets Sex and the City..."--Us Weekly"Funny, and as nuanced as a broken-in Armani jacket."--The Boston Globe"Jacobs has written a stylish first novel, the perfect book for readers tired of all those shopworn, familiar novelist names."--The Wall Street Journal
"[An] Enchanting first novel...Women About Town is immensely fun to read."--Victoria Magazine
"Breezy, urbane."--Harper's Bazaar"...bold storytelling reminiscent of feminist literary icons Jane Austen and Virginia Woolf...resonates with keen, pitch-perfect observations."--Avenue Magazine"Irresistible...the book's greatest pleasure likes in Jacobs' sensitivity to self consciousness."--Newsday"Jacobs laces a gossipy guilty pleasure with feeling and sophisticated wit."--Publishers Weekly"Quiet prose and well-developed characters distinguish this insightful look at the lives of today's career woman."--Booklist"Jacobs takes us into the inside world of Vanity Fair and captures its pulse and tempo with exquisite sense and sensibility of a Jane Austen."--Gloria Vanderbilt"Women About Town is smart in all senses of the world: stylish, intelligent, fresh. Save it for a bad day: it will make you happy. Laura Jacobs is something rarer than a promising first novelist--a generous one."--Judith Thurman"Laura Jacob's writing is winsome, knowing, and cool; her observant novel is like a quick dip in the Lincoln Center foutain."--Meg Wolitzer"Women About Town is elegant and witty and charming--much like its charaacters, women who have talent and style and that most marvelous of Manhattan chracteristics: moxie. Laura Jacobs is our new Dawn Powell, but with a more generous heart."--Kevin Sessums"Women About Town is a fine, stylish novel, ostensibly about the lives of sophisticated New Yorkers. In reality, it is an honest, moving story about and for women everywhere."--Nancy Friday"Charming, funny, beautifully written and compulsively readable, Women about Town is a sheer delight.--Dani Shapiro"Jane Austen would be proud."--Rosie Magazine
Review
“Laura Jacobs firmly establishes herself as one of our most astute and elegant observers of a certain rarefied species of female Manhattanite . . . Enchanting.”
—Vanity Fair“Laura Jacobs is an urban miniaturist. In her sleek, pitch-perfect second novel, The Bird Catcher, she lavishes delectable attention on the subtle distinctions wrought by taste, class, money, and style in the city on which she trains her eagle eye….Jacobs orchestrates her character's sonata as expansively and dramatically as a symphony whose strains linger on, long after the last page has been turned.” —Bookforum
“Jacobs presents a measured and compelling yet nonlinear narrative so that readers encounter Margret's life in pieces. And it is well worth the effort to get to know her. Jacobs' incisive writing captures her characters' moods, while her graceful descriptions of the birds that inspire her protagonist illuminate the story.” —Booklist
Synopsis
From an award-winning editor comes the story of Margret Snow, who's well-ordered Manhattan life suffers a violent upheaval that pushes her beyond the boundaries of her birdwatching hobby to make her an overnight art world sensation.
Synopsis
Margret Snow is the quintessential New York woman. She dresses the windows of Saks Fifth Avenue by day and mingles in the downtown art world by night, always searching for her niche in a city intent on capturing The Next Big Thing as it flies into view. Married to Charles, a professor at Columbia, and living on the Upper West Side, the backdrop to Margret's life is made up of the poetic rhythms and colors of the Manhattan day: slow-running buses, the gray morning light striking the Hudson, the winter landscape of Riverside Park, the endless round of gallery openings, cocktail parties and grand dinners in the palatial apartments on Manhattan's upper east side. Against this metropolitan whirl, Margret and Charles pursue a lifelong hobby of bird watching, a passion for which was kindled by her grandfather during long-past summers near the shore in Gloucester, Massachusetts. As they shuttle between their Manhattan apartment, birding in the city's parks, and weekends out of town in their house near Cape May, a violent upheaval pushes Margret beyond the boundaries of her hobby. Overnight, she becomes an art world sensation and just as suddenly has fame ripped from her. As Laura Jacobs proved in her first novel, Women About Town, she understands the natural habitat of the New York Woman in all its complexity. In The Bird Catcher, her second, she moves deeper into that territory with the story of a remarkable woman who is as rare and special as the birds that fill the skies above her.
About the Author
Laura Jacobs is an award-winning contributing editor at Vanity Fair and the dance critic for The New Criterion. She has also written for Atlantic Monthly, the Village Voice and the New Republic. She lives in New York City with her husband, writer James Wolcott.
Reading Group Guide
Discussion Questions
1. The first chapter is an introduction to the novels heroine, Margret Snow. What do you learn about her during this walk in a wooded area of Riverside Park? What is her relationship with her husband?
2. What is your first impression of the dynamic between Margret and her best friend Emily Edwards? Is the friendship balanced? And does your perception of its dynamic change as the novel progresses? Is one of these women stronger than the other?
3. Milton Beecham, Margrets maternal grandfather, is an influential presence in her life. What has she learned from him? Near the end of the book Charlotte tells Margret that she is like Milton; do you agree? If so, in what ways?
4. In some ways Margret is under-employed as a free-lance window-dresser. Why has she stayed so long in this job? Are windows a hiding place for her, or a form of freedom?
5. Milton tells Margret that “beauty is a trap,” and later in the novel she thinks to herself that “desire is like a cage.” Are these comments on love or sex or art?
6. Margret rarely fails to notice a mans hands. Why do you think this is?
7. The Bird Catcher contains a number of marriages. And works of art that portray marriages (Glucks Orpheus and Eurydice, Mozarts The Magic Flute, Massacios Expulsion) are particular touchstones for Margret. What does marriage mean to Margret?
8. It is bird watching that brought Margret and Charles together, but in the wake of his death, she is driven to connect with birds in a visceral way. Why?
9. After his drunken assault on Margret in the Boiler Room, Joe silently hands her the shopping bag “as if it were a gift.” What has passed between them?
10. How does one grieve in this new century, which has no time for the rituals of mourning, and doesnt want to believe that death is a part of life? Were the Victorians more honest about sorrow and loss than we are, despite our ironic and existential stances?
11. There are at least two turning points in the novel, events that feel like disasters but actually open the way toward rebirth. What do you think these turning points are, and is one more important than the other?
12. The novel is titled The Bird Catcher, but it isnt really birds that Margret is trying to catch. What is she reaching for? Are her boxes reaching for the same thing?
13. In the first chapter, Margret kneels down to look at a dead woodcock in the grass. In the last chapter she kneels so that she can plant a small pine in the ground. What kind of progress has she made between these two moments? How has she grown?