Joyce Maynard

Fiction 2023 | 404 pages

The Bird Hotel is a visual extravaganza.  Reading it, I can see the flowers, the birds, the lake, the volcano, and the 100 steps down to the hotel, La Llorona, that Maynard writes about so masterfully.  I am very moved by an author who can create such a visually compelling and clear narrative.

Joan is an American whose mother dies in a Weather Underground bomb explosion when she is six-years old.  Raised by her grandmother, she changes her name to Irene and receives a new birth certificate and passport, because her grandmother (correctly!) believed the FBI would be searching for the whereabouts of their terrorist daughter and mother.

Irene's life takes some very difficult turns, and she is followed by tragedy, until one morning, leaving her tiny apartment in San Francisco, she walks to the Golden Gate bridge to jump off, but does not do so.  Instead, she climbs aboard a green van with a pile of hippies, not caring where they are going.  Eventually, a number of days later, she finds herself in a small town in Columbia staying in a very quaint and small hotel where she gradually, somwehat unintentionally, begins to heal her life.

Irene is an exquisite character, as are the indigenous and gringo people we meet who live in La Esperanza.  Irene inherits the hotel eventually and lives out her days there, again through turmoil, but surrounded by the daily healing qualities of the land on which she lives, and the watercolor painting she does every afternoon.

I exuberantly recommend this book.  It is gorgeous and will capture your heart and your soul.

June 2024