Synopses & Reviews
On his deathbed, the great ornithologist John James Audubon is haunted by an incident thirty years ago, when a beautiful woman died suddenly on a Louisiana plantation where he was employed as a tutor. This is the central mystery of Browns beguiling third novel.
Having failed as a businessman and portraitist, Audubon in 1821 is just beginning to formulate his grand design to draw all the birds of America. An artist and scientist, aristocrat and wayfaring outcast, he is ambitious, reckless, and naive. Such is his frame of mind when visitors arrive from New Orleans: a scandal-ridden physician and anatomist named Emile Gautreaux and his stunning wife, Myra. When Myra collapses and dies, the distraught Gautreaux believes she has been murdered. He asks the young tutor to sit with him though the long night, keeping watch over her body.
The two men do not meet again for decades, until the now famous Audubon summons Gautreaux to his New York estate. The mystery of Myras death has linked them inextricably over time, as each has harbored secrets and deceptions. Richly atmospheric, this mesmerizing tale confirms that Browns compassionate vision of human destiny is one that contains both suffering and the possibility of deliverance” (New York Times).
Review
"…Brown provides a delicate rendition of gloomy themes."
Review
"a well-written book that deals with the themes of death, regret, and our place in the world
" Library Journal
"Brown's ambition and achievement in 'Audubon's Watch' lie in the sensual effects of his ornate, overripe language." New York Review of Books
"
Brown provides a delicate rendition of gloomy themes." Publishers Weekly
"Audubon's Watch
focuses on the moral topography of love. . . . Brown creates a Southern Victorian prose voice: grand, self-absorbed, ultimately fearful." The Chicago Tribune
Synopsis
From the acclaimed author of Decorations in a Ruined Cemetery, Audubons Watch is a brazen performance” (New York Times Book Review) inspired by a brief journal entry made by the artist and ornithologist John James Audubon. This richly atmospheric novel traces the paths of two men whose lives are inextricably linked by the tragic events of a single night. Part historical novel, part Victorian murder mystery, Audubons Watch peels away the familiar legend portion of the biography to explore the private mysteries of memory, remorse, and the redemption of pain” (Los Angeles Times). This is a mesmerizing tale, and in the end, the subject matter of Browns material . . . permits him to capture, in midflight as it were, the hummingbird pulse of the human heart” (Orlando Sentinel).
About the Author
John Gregory Brown lives in Virginia and teaches creative writing at Sweet Briar College. He is the author of The Wrecked, Blessed Body of Shelton LaFleur and Decorations in a Ruined Cemetery, which received a Steinbeck Award and the Lillian Smith Award. Audubon's Watch was selected as the Louisiana Endowment for the Humanities Book of the Year.