The Book of Dead Birds [Hardcover]

Hye-yang is a dutiful daughter in a Korean village where the women are ocean divers. But Hye-yang is clumsy, unable to contribute to the family's meager coffers, so she goes to the city, where she is tricked into a life of prostitution. As a prostitute, she is demeaned and abused, unable to speak up, even when her best friend, another prostitute, is killed. When a young soldier brings her to America as his wife, Hye-yang, now Helen, hasn't the courage to tell him the shameful truth: her life of prostitution as a vessel for colored soldiers and that she is already pregnant. When the child is born with dark skin, the soldier beats and sexually abuses Helen, leaving her to make a living as a single mother in a strange land.

With her dark skin, Ava Sing Lo looks black, is half-Korean, yet never feels comfortable with either identity. Studious and reliable, her life is spent at school and helping her mother. She secretly reads a journal kept by her mother over the years, where Helen has documented all the birds Ava accidentally killed, meaning only kindness. Ava takes this as another criticism of her abject failure as a daughter. After graduating college, Ava has no sense of direction, no plan for her life. In an effort to do something positive, Ava volunteers to help in an effort to save endangered pelicans at the Salton Sea, determined to prove that she can do something positive.

Leaving San Diego temporarily to live at the Salton Sea, Ava finds herself amid a group of eccentrics that are a balm to her discomfort. Enjoying the open-hearted acceptance of these new friends, Ava begins a process of self-discovery. Then Helen appears at the Salton Sea and, after a while, the mother and daughter experience an unexpected healing, reaching across the years of Helen's silent suffering and Ava's anguished need, bridging the years and opening a door to the future.

The metaphor of the birds is central to Helen's life, and by extension, to her daughter. The birds are ubiquitous in Korea, carping and squawking in the background, distinct in their ability to scavenge for scraps, to exist on the meager amount the stingy land provides. In such a way, Helen has survived, on scraps, physically and emotionally. But she has no words, no legacy for Ava. Helen's spirit has been confined by her silence, in Korea and the strange new land where her daughter is born. Ava's generous and forgiving heart is the balm that heals their wounds, as Ava offers the words to Helen she's longed to speak, "I know the language of birds." Luan Gaines/2003.

The scenes at the Salton Sea are rendered so truly, you can smell the air and feel the crunch of the hard shore. Brandeis, who has written about the importance of sensuality in her book Fruitflesh: Seeds of Inspiration for Women Who Write, skillfully puts the reader in the triple-digit heat of the stinking bird kill or the cool waters of a lagoon diving for abalone in Korea.

But the author is tricky. The places and characters in this fierce novel are deceptively exotic. The story is actually a familiar one, exceptionally well told, of the rage between parent and child when life has been so much less than good. Finally, with all its images of death, The Book of Dead Birds is really about rebirth, about taking one more chance, believing that happiness is possible, and deciding to go get it.

It is only when Ava takes the step to drive the few hours to Salton Sea, that she finally gets to understand her mother, her background, and the fascinating and sorrow-filled world of the dying birds. It's all captured well, in well-crafted words, and there's even a bit of Korean folklore. Ava is a sympathetic character who was easy to identify with. And, as the mother's story gradually unfolded, I was filled with horror as well as a new kind of understanding for the world of young women who are lured into the nightmare world of servicing men.

I was heartened to see Ava finally emerge from the shadow world of her history and find meaning in her life as well as love. Mostly, though, I was glad to see her working side by side with her mother to help rescue birds. In just 245 pages, the author has managed to do a lot. No wonder this book has won the 2003 Bellwether prize for fiction has been lauded by such notables as Toni Morrison and Barbara Kingsolver.

I found the book wonderful. And definitely recommend it. I'm also looking forward to whatever Ms. Brandeis writes next. She is clearly at the beginning of a long a distinguished career.