65 of 66 copies available
At the deteriorating Pheasant Run, the occupants keep their secrets and sadnesses behind closed apartment doors. Kind Leo Umberti, formerly an insurance agent, now spends his days painting abstract landscapes and mourning a long-ago loss. Down the hall, retired professor Rydell Clovis tries desperately to stay fit enough to restart a career in academia. Cassie McMackin, on the same floor, has seemingly lost everything—her husband and only child dead within months of each other—leaving her loosely tethered to this world. And a few doors away, her friend, Viola Six, is convinced of a criminal conspiracy involving the building's widely disliked manager, Herbie Bonebright.
Cassie and Viola dream of leaving their unhappy lives behind, but one woman's plan is interrupted—and the other's unexpectedly set into motion—when a fire breaks out in Herbie's apartment. Lander Maki, the city's chief fire inspector, finds the circumstances around the fire highly suspicious. Viola has disappeared. So has Herbie. And a troubled teen was glimpsed fleeing the scene. In trying to fit together the pieces of this complicated puzzle, Lander finds himself learning more than expected about human nature and about personal and corporate greed as it is visited upon the vulnerable. From a writer "with a keen sense of the small detail that says it all" (Chicago Tribune), Aviary weaves a compelling tapestry of love, grief, and the mysteries of memory and old age.
"Aviary is as questioning as its characters, heart-haunted, buoyant, and rich with the wonders that make life worth living." —Chicago Review of Books
"Even when it hurts—and, if you have anything in the way of feelings, this novel will make you weep—Aviary is a cleansing antidote to the last few years of political and cultural turmoil, a salve to combat our still-raging health crisis, a tonic for our social media spinout . . . This quietly important book offers hope as it tackles grief and isolation and our essential humanity." —New York Times Book Review
"The residents at Pheasant Run are acutely aware of the world's indifference to them. They no longer work. Their great love affairs are behind them. Why should they fight back? But by the end of this underdog novel, Ms. McNamer has developed poignant reasons that they do." —Wall Street Journal
"Beautifully realized characters, a wonderfully constructed plot . . . this novel is a delight from start to finish." —Booklist
-
Creators
-
Publisher
-
Release date
June 10, 2022 -
Formats
-
Kindle Book
-
OverDrive Read
- ISBN: 9781571317384
-
EPUB ebook
- ISBN: 9781571317384
- File size: 2307 KB
-
-
Languages
- English
-
Reviews
-
January 15, 2021
A suspicious fire at a senior residence profoundly affects the elderly denizens and those around them. The Pheasant Run condo isn't nearly as grand as it sounds. Cassie McMackin, one of its occupants, is counting pills and contemplating suicide when we meet her. Cassie's neighbor Viola Six is worried about paying the rent, having lost her savings to a scam promoted by an ex-beau. Down the hall is Leo Uberti, an Italian Jewish artist with a painful past. Hidden in Viola's basement storage is an abused and bullied 15-year-old, Clayton Spooner. Then there's Herbie Bonebright, the treacherous new manager of the building, apparently involved in a scheme to oust tenants so Pheasant Run can be converted into a more profitable enterprise. One morning, a fire erupts in Herbie's apartment. While the blaze is quickly contained, fire inspector Lander Maki thinks it may be arson. Herbie is suddenly nowhere to be found, and Viola Six has vanished too. But this is no geriatric whodunit, and author McNamer is not so concerned with exposing the perp. (When that revelation finally comes, it's anticlimactic.) She's more interested in the indignities of old age, memory and loss, and what one character calls "the secret of ongoingness." Much of the writing is quite lyrical, as in the description of Maki's "beyond-human" sense of smell: "His olfactory sensitivity had become so intimately intertwined with memory that the smell of a remembered presence arrived in tandem with the smell of its absence." Still, some passages are overwritten, and some plot points seem dubious. The novel also has a bleak undertow, though Maki's wife, Rhonda, an animal whisperer, exudes eccentric charm and brightens the scenes she's in. A quasi-happy ending is preceded by many casualties--some of which seem arbitrary. Richly drawn characters in search of a more compelling narrative.COPYRIGHT(2021) Kirkus Reviews, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
-
March 1, 2021
McNamer's latest novel centers around the seemingly orderly lives of residents in Pheasant Run, a quiet if rundown retirement community in Montana. However, as in the town of Twin Peaks, all is not what it seems, especially after a mysterious apartment fire brings a hidden world to the surface. McNamer masterfully swoops in and out of the experiences of a varied cast of characters, such as the stoic fire inspector, Lander Maki, who lives with his eccentric wife, Rhonda, surrounded by animals, and Clayton Spooner, a teen coping with his father's philandering with a younger woman. The early scenes evoke a wistful sense of loss, grief, and abandonment reminiscent of Kate Walbert's Our Kind (2004) before the narrative smoothly transitions into a fascinating whodunit. McNamer weaves into this narrative the ripple effects of the 2008 financial crisis and the mismanagement of retirement communities, a setting that is particularly relevant now considering the way COVID-19 has ravaged these communities. With beautifully realized characters, a wonderfully constructed plot, and some understated but powerful prose, this novel is a delight from start to finish.COPYRIGHT(2021) Booklist, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
-
April 1, 2021
The aviary of the book's title is a metaphor for a senior apartment complex in an unnamed Montana college town. There is concern among the varied residents regarding deteriorating conditions in the building and the presence of an incompetent and threatening new maintenance man. A fire in an apartment and the disappearance of one of the residents lead to further stress and suspicion. Empathetic fire investigator Lander Maki is brought into the case, while the residents share their theories and cope with their own histories of love and loss. A pair of troubled teenagers, one bullied and the other abused, are also thrown into the mix. Housing precarity, a lack of concern and care for elders, and the necessity of acknowledging the relationship of humans to the natural world are overarching themes. VERDICT With so many (perhaps too many) characters and story threads, one worries whether McNamer (Red Rover) will be able to bring them together by the end, but she does. The conclusion is satisfying, but mention of a mysterious illness afflicting one resident returning from a cruise in early 2020 casts an ominous shadow. Recommended for readers eager for nonquaint novels about seniors.--Christine DeZelar-Tiedman, Univ. of Minnesota Libs., Minneapolis
Copyright 2021 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.
-