Heartbreaking, endearing, delicate
The Bird Sisters used to have many visitors from near and
far, those who had found injured birds and wanted the sisters to fix the broken
wings. Milly and Twiss are spinsters, old ladies living in their childhood
Wisconsin house, biding their time and anxiously awaiting visitors. Lately, though, there haven’t been many
visitors , which leads the isolated sisters to reminisce about their past.
Flitting back to 1947, Milly and Twiss are young teens
living with their parents. Their lives are relatively normal until
their philandering father crashes his car and somehow loses his golfing
skills—a family crisis as he was a Golf Pro. As their parents drift apart, their
father starts living in the barn while their mother stays in her bedroom—everything
is in a downward spiral. Financially the family is hurting, but their proud mother refuses to accept the family’s new
societal status, refusing assistance from the Sewing Society ladies.
Milly is the eldest, the level headed and sturdy sister who
loves to bake. Townspeople scrape together flour and sugar just to ensure that her
baking skills continue to develop. Twiss is the young wild child, the tomboy,
the free spirit. With their absentee father (he stays in the barn all day) and
their depressed mother, the sisters have to rely heavily on each other. Despite
the house dysfunction, their cousin Bett, older at eighteen, soon arrives to
spend the summer with them. Twiss doesn’t understand Bett, who is plain, sickly,
and rather unlikeable, but their mother appreciates Bett’s household
assistance. In true coming of Age style, by the end of the summer Milly Twiss
and Bett will have had to grow up, their future fates decided.
The Bird Sisters is everything a novel should be, and beyond
everything a debut novel should be. If only more writers wrote stories as
intricate and luminous as this, The Bird Sisters is a Must-read. Reach for this
Coming of Age novel for your summer read or as a pick for your next book club.
