The Bird Woman

By Kerry Hardie

Book Overview

The much anticipated second novel from prize-winning Irish poet and novelist, Kerry Hardie. 'The Bird Woman' is a moving account of two marriages, a gift that feels like a curse, and the freedom that... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0316076236
• ISBN13: 9780316076234
• Release Date: August 2006
• Publisher: Little Brown and Company
• Length: 384 Pages
• Weight: 1.30 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.2" x 6.4" x 9.6"

Customer Reviews

Ruffled my feathers

I'm torn. I enjoyed the book, even if I found it a tad too wordy at times, not to mention a tad too abstract. The main character of Ellen, left me baffled and frustrated from beginning to end. Her emotional distress was deep as the lakes of Killarny. Unlike those crystal lakes, the root of her distress was NOT crystal clear. Her problems went far beyond the inability to accept her healing hands; in fact, it seemed to begin in the womb, or at least at her mother's knee. Granted her mother was not the most nurturing or loving of women, but there were no concrete instances penned by the author to make you say...."AH! There's the problem!". Kerry Hardie seems to have a penchant for authoring disturbed and disturbing main characters...check out her previous novel. Ellen's angst notwithstanding, I don't think you'll regret reading this novel.

The Bird has flown the coop.

Kerry Hardie's, The Bird Woman is a touching tale of love and pain. Ellen's abilities, while remarkable, have caused insurmountable strains on all her relationships in her marriage and her family. She tries to fight the impossible powers she wields, the harder she struggles the more intense they become. Psychic visions have now turned into the ability to heal. If only her abilities could help her heal and heal the relationships in her life... Ellen has to learn how to live with the gifts she was given and juggle her family and her own wellbeing at the same time. At times the language was a bit difficult to understand as Kerry Hardie portrayed the various dialects spoken in Ireland. This being said, The Bird Woman takes a few chapters to get the flow going. Once you have gotten into the rhythm it will keep you reading to find out what Ellen is going to do next. Ellen runs the gamut of emotions ranging from anger and depression to faith and, at times, joy. Her inner battle is more complex than most characters and it is easy to find yourself sharing in her struggles. Kerry Hardie shows her ability to reach through and make a reader help share the feelings of her main character with The Bird Woman. That is an amazing talent to behold. Reviewed by Joyce Courtesy of C2K's Kwips and Kritiques

"She made me what I am."

From the time she runs off to marry bad boy Robbie, Ellen is filled with a divisiveness that will define the direction of her life. Seeking to escape the cold judgmentalism of her widowed mother, Ellen flees her demons by flying precipitously into relationships with men. A solitary, taciturn child with flaming red hair, Ellen has never cultivated friends, trapped on the barren islands in an isolation so pervasive that she is held captive by her own dark nature. She has the rare gift of seeing, to Ellen a burden and an unwelcome intrusion, yet another mark of her difference from others, her unbelonging: "If you do not bring forward that which is in you, that which is in you will destroy you." When Ellen meets Liam in the North of Ireland, she is still married to the wild, sometimes savage Robbie and flees from him to the south with Liam, who is Catholic in name only, but still steeped in the culture of his upbringing. Once settled in her new home, the otherness is more pronounced, the familiar trappings of her Protestant youth replaced by the Catholic south and the mores of this new environment: "Peace it may be on paper, but it's an armed and arm's-length peace." Clinging to Liam, Ellen is forever at war with her nature, waging a pitched battle at what Liam calls "the Healing", for fear that it will destroy her: "I'm all twisted up inside... I'm doing the best I can." Over time and with the steady support of a friend, Catherine, Ellen accepts her gift and begins to use it for the good of others, all the while conscious of the isolation inherent in her circumstances. Marriage, children, the years pass, her union with Liam settling into the soothing routines of duty, but run aground by Liam's personal crisis, which tests the very foundations of their marriage and their love for one another. This beautifully wrought tale is a novel of contrasts and revelations, Ellen's lifelong struggle to marry the disparate elements of her inner torment, the centuries-old divisions of north and south Ireland, a country split apart by hatred, and the challenges of a marriage that requires more than Ellen is prepared to give. In stunning prose that evokes the beauty of the country and the profound contradictions of the spirit, the author suffuses her protagonist with the passion of dispossession and a yearning for completeness. The past illuminated by the death of her mother and the present fully realized, Ellen survives her dark night of the soul: "I'm thinking that maybe when you reach that point you can't be anyone but yourself." Luan Gaines/2006.

poignant character study

Residing in Ireland, thirty-six years old Ellen McKinnon begins her trek home to Derry, North Ireland to say her goodbyes to her dying mother. She thinks back to her past when her first late husband physically and mentally abused her; she dreams of her stillborn child; her time in a Belfast mental asylum because she foolishly mentioned her clairvoyance visions; and finally when she first met Liam, her current spouse, who has encouraged her to be all that she can be. A sculptor Liam and their friend the former nun Catherine coaxed Ellen to share her gift with those ailing. She began to become involved in her community. Before long as her reputation grew, Ellen tried to tear down the mental loathing that divides Northerners from Southerners as she sought a sense of belonging to her spouse, her birth nation, her adopted country, and her heritage. THE BIRD WOMAN is a poignant character study focusing on a woman searching for a sense of purpose and place that she can call home. The story line is somewhat passive as Kerry Hardie concentrates on insuring the audience understands what makes Ellen tick. The support cast augments the full understanding of a somewhat reticent outsider with divided loyalties trying to find where she fits in. Harriet Klausner