Many thanks to NetGalley and Atria Books for gifting me the latest novel by Zeyn Joukhadar. 3.5 stars rounded up for such gorgeous writing.
This is a very complex story told in two voices - a closeted Syrian American trans boy still haunted by the death of his mother, an ornithologist. Since her death, he has been unable to paint, except for a mural on an abandoned building at night. At the building site, he finds a journal from a famous painter, Lydia Z., who hasn't been seen in 60 years and who is the only other person who has seen the same rare bird as his mother did. In alternating chapters, we also hear Lydia's story, from her Syrian childhood to her American life. Birds are at the heart of this story - both the elusive ones, the painted and studied ones, and the ones who seem to be all around the NYC neighborhoods where the story takes place.
This is a hard book to review - it has some of the most beautiful sentences and descriptions I've ever read. But it was a challenge to read. It seems as if everyone in this book was not comfortable in their skins - whether they don't fit in because of their race, their gender struggles, their lifestyles. The Syrian language and customs in this book were also difficult for me - I really needed a glossary and my Kindle translator didn't work on any of the words! It was a bit confusing as well - there is much symbolism and spiritualism so that I wasn't always sure what was real. But again, the writing was beautiful and I think I just wasn't the right reader for this book.
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