FINALIST FOR THE 2022 NATIONAL BOOK AWARD
The Birdcatcher is the new novel from a major voice in American literature, which explores artists in exile, dangerous relationships and the demands of creativity.
‘A literary giant, and one of my absolute favourite writers’ – Tayari Jones, author of An American Marriage
‘I am living on the white-washed island of Ibiza with my friend Catherine Shuger, a sculptor who has been declared legally insane, and her husband, Ernest. Standing on the terrace, sheltered in the smell of oranges and eucalyptus, washed in sunlight, you’d swear this was a paradise. But to tell the truth the place is full of dangers. You see, Catherine sometimes tries to kill her husband. It has been this way for years . . .’
‘My name’s Amanda Wordlaw. Wonderful name for a writer, isn’t it? . . . I guess I’m sort of a choice companion for the Shugers – professional watcher and listener that I am. It’s like they need someone else to witness the shit, the spectacle they make of themselves.’
‘A fascinating meditation on Black female creativity from the author of Corregidora and Palmares . . . Vivid characters shimmer through the pages’ Suzi Feay, GUARDIAN
The Birdcatcher is the new novel from a major voice in American literature, which explores artists in exile, dangerous relationships and the demands of creativity.
‘A literary giant, and one of my absolute favourite writers’ – Tayari Jones, author of An American Marriage
‘I am living on the white-washed island of Ibiza with my friend Catherine Shuger, a sculptor who has been declared legally insane, and her husband, Ernest. Standing on the terrace, sheltered in the smell of oranges and eucalyptus, washed in sunlight, you’d swear this was a paradise. But to tell the truth the place is full of dangers. You see, Catherine sometimes tries to kill her husband. It has been this way for years . . .’
‘My name’s Amanda Wordlaw. Wonderful name for a writer, isn’t it? . . . I guess I’m sort of a choice companion for the Shugers – professional watcher and listener that I am. It’s like they need someone else to witness the shit, the spectacle they make of themselves.’
‘A fascinating meditation on Black female creativity from the author of Corregidora and Palmares . . . Vivid characters shimmer through the pages’ Suzi Feay, GUARDIAN
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Reviews
A marvel about art, love, mental health, and motherhood
With the plush scenery of a travelogue, the misshapen soul of a noir, and the anarchic spirit of a trickster tale, this novel revolves around three Black American expatriates.The narrator, Amanda, is a divorced travel writer invited to the island of Ibiza by her friend Catherine, a prize-winning sculptor, who "sometimes tries to kill her husband." Catherine is suspicious of Amanda's intentions toward her husband, but, in Jones's fearsome, fractured narrative, her potential for violence seems no more alarming than anything else that might befall these social outsiders.
After suffering the author's absence for far too long, we can rejoice at her return
Brilliant and incendiary, Jones's pairing of tragedy with dark humour cuts to the bone
Gayl Jones is a literary legend . . . She has reimagined the lives of Black women across North, South and Central America . . . in a way no other writer has done
Gayl Jones constructs a novel that is part mystery, part thriller, and wholly captivating . . . Jones is an outstanding writer . . . a shining segment of the American literary canon has been restored
The remarkable latest release by acclaimed novelist and poet Jones . . . Her prose is captivating, at moments coolly observational and at others profoundly intimate; the delicate balance is the mark of a truly great storyteller. An intriguing, tightly crafted, and insightful meditation on creativity and complicated friendships
A literary giant, and one of my absolute favourite writers
Jones' mercurial, often inscrutable body of work delivers yet another change-up to readers' expectations
A fascinating meditation on Black female creativity from the author of Corregidora and Palmares . . . Vivid characters shimmer through the pages
This is a brilliant and unsparing examination of the burdens we place on friendship and marriage, the way that creative genius is misperceived as madness, the clumsy way mental health is addressed, the scourge of racism, and the alchemy of folklore and legacy bound in the secrets we hide
Jones continues her marvelous run after last year's Pulitzer finalist Palmares with the gloriously demented story of an artist who keeps trying to kill her husband . . . Jones, implicitly defiant, draws deeply from classic and global literature - a well-placed reference to Cervantes's windmills leaves the reader's head spinning. And like one of Amanda's inventive novels, this one ends on a surprising and playful turn. It ought to be required reading