Aviary, Deirdre McNamer
Aviary, Deirdre McNamer
List: $19.99 | Sale: $13.99
Club: $9.99

Aviary

Author: Deirdre McNamer

Narrator: Christina Delaine

Unabridged: 8 hr 23 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Published: 04/13/2021


Synopsis

At the deteriorating Pheasant Run, the occupants keep their secrets and sadnesses locked tight behind closed apartment doors. Kind Leo Umberti, formerly an insurance agent, now quietly 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.

Called to investigate is the city's chief fire inspector, Lander Maki—who finds the fire itself, and the circumstances around it, highly suspicious. Viola has disappeared. So has Herbie. And a troubled teen, Clayton Spooner, 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.

About Deirdre McNamer

Deirdre McNamer is the author of the novels Rima in the Weeds, One Sweet Quarrel, My Russian, and Red Rover, which was a winner of the Montana Book Award and was named a best book of the year by Artforum, the Washington Post, and the Los Angeles Times. Her essays, short fiction, and reviews have appeared in the New Yorker, Ploughshares, the New York Times, and Outside, among other venues. McNamer chaired the fiction panel of the National Book Awards in 2011 and was a judge for the 2015 PEN/Faulkner Award. She has taught writing at Cornell University, Williams College, the University of Ohio, the University of Oregon, the University of Alabama, the University of Montana, and the Bennington Writing Seminars, where she currently holds a faculty position in the low-residency MFA program. She lives in Missoula, Montana.


Reviews

Goodreads review by Lark on October 31, 2021

On every page McNamer opens an intimate window and allows us to appreciate the humanity of her characters. The realities of elder home living--the relationships, the fears, the dependencies, the way people you love keep leaving you, either by moving away abruptly, or dying--were so lovingly captured......more

Aviary was the first book that I have ever read by Deirdre McNamer. She was an author that I was unfamiliar with. Her writing was quite good and her character development was complex and well developed. It took a while to fully grasp where the plot of Aviary was going and how all these characters we......more

Goodreads review by Carol on April 23, 2022

As an old person, I cringe when a book tells about old people in a precarious situation. Will they depicted as helpless victims? At first, I thought this was that kind of book. But no, these people are shown as intelligent people, with agency, even though someone is trying to exploit them by selling......more

Goodreads review by Elizabeth on September 30, 2021

What an engaging and delightful read! The story was populated by such interesting characters. I didn't care too much about the plot - who set the fire? But the characters were unique and beautifully drawn, especially Maki the fire inspector and his wife. Clayton, the troubled teen, was absolutely au......more

Goodreads review by Kristi Lamont on August 09, 2021

Sweet, smart, and often witty story about an interestingly diverse number of people. Not _quite_ the mystery novel I thought it was going to be, more of a slice of life novel, and the ending "felt thin," somehow, for lack of better words. Definitely enjoyed Aviary enough to read more by Deirdre McName......more