Read 226 of 2021. Featherhood: A Memoir of Two Fathers and a Magpie by Charlie Gilmour

Title: Featherhood: A Memoir of Two Fathers and a Magpie
Author: Charlie Gilmour
Publisher: Scribner
ISBN: 978-1501198502
Genre: Memoir, Nonfiction
Pages: 304
Source: Publisher
Rating: 4/5

I first heard of this book by going through the Wainwright Prize 2021 shortlist in the Nature Writing category. I was taken in by what the synopsis said and couldn’t wait to read it. Also, I didn’t realize till much later that Charlie Gilmour is the adoptive son of David Gilmour of Pink Floyd fame and all that.  

Featherhood, however is not about David Gilmour and his relationship with Charlie. It is about Charlie, his biological father Heathcote Williams and of Charlie being a parent to a magpie named Benzene. This is why Featherhood. This book of course reminded me of H is for Hawk as it should, but only at the beginning. When Charlie’s voice took over, I forgot everything else. 

Why do people abandon people? Why do biological fathers leave? What happens when you do not love enough? Charlie attempts to answer these questions and more by also taking care of Benzene and also somehow figuring his biological father. Charlie is left to figure Heathcote after his death – through papers, by meeting people, and his memories of him. And there are no closures. That is the beauty of the writing. 

Charlie doesn’t focus much on his relationship with David. So fans of Floyd might be a bit disappointed there. However, my favourite parts are the ones with Benzene. How does one take care of a magpie? How does it become a part of your world, almost becoming your world? As Benzene grows up, we also see a change in Charlie’s perspective to life and he finds humour in things than being pensive. Benzene provides Charlie with love, care, empathy, and more than anything confidence and self-esteem.

Having lost a parent, I know what it is like. I could sense Charlie’s confusion to some extent, since he wasn’t close to Heathcote and hadn’t known him at all. At the same time, the way he raises Benzene is so reflective of what he has with David.

Featherhood is beautiful. I read it slowly and took time with it, page by page. It is one of those books that left me with a smile at the end of it.

Self-Portrait with Boy by Rachel Lyon

Title: Self-Portrait with Boy
Author: Rachel Lyon
Publisher: Scribner
ISBN: 978-1501169588
Genre: Literary Fiction
Pages: 384
Source: Publisher
Rating: 5 Stars

2018 is already turning out to be an exciting year for books. I say this because all the books I’ve read so far, the ones published this year, have been superb reads. And “Self-Portrait with Boy” is the latest addition to that list.

Lu Rile is a young photographer struggling to make ends meet. She has an aging father. She has no permanent house. And then one fine day, in the background of a self-portrait, Lu accidentally captures on film a boy (Max) falling past her window to his death. This picture turns out to be perfect – the best that she has done. This picture could change her life for the better. At the same time, the boy was her neighbor’s son and soon enough Lu forms a bond with Kate like no other. The question then is: Will Lu use the picture to advance her career or not? For that, you would just have to read the book.

I loved the premise of “Self-Portrait with Boy”. It is intense, profound and heartbreaking. While it is one of those conundrum plots, it is also about empathy, loneliness in the city and the relationship we share with death and redemption. You know at one point, the plot may also not seem original to most, but what does stand out for sure is Lyon’s writing.

Lyon is no-holds-barred with this novel. She is all guns blazing. I love the setting of the book – the ​early 90s in Brooklyn. The world is on the ​ significant brink of change and amidst all of that, anything can happen and it does. Lu and Kate aren’t easy characters to deal with. The other residents of the building are beautifully etched.

There are so many questions that need to be answered while reading the book and there comes a point when you are strangely okay as a reader at those not being answered. It has a lot to do with Lyon not finding the need to those being addressed and making you comfortable as a reader, while turning the pages. Part-mystery, most parts literary, “Self-Portrait with Boy” is a book with so much empathy and loneliness of the human heart, that you will find yourself weeping and stunned by the prose.

Mothering Sunday by Graham Swift

Title: Mothering Sunday
Author: Graham Swift
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 978-1471155239
Genre: Literary Fiction
Pages: 136
Source: Publisher
Rating: 5/5

I have not read much by Graham Swift. I have always found his books to be slow and kinda dragging, however this time round when I did read his latest, “Mothering Sunday” – I was left with a tingling feeling of melancholy, happiness and some bittersweet feeling that I couldn’t place my finger on. In short, I loved what I read. The book is different. It is short – almost a novella and it takes you on a rollercoaster of emotions like no other book I’ve read in recent past.

“Mothering Sunday” is about a day that changes everything – 30th March 1924. The day is Mothering Sunday. The question is how Jane Fairchild, an orphan, spends her time when she clearly has no mother to visit?

Jane Fairchild is only twenty-two, working at a house as a maid since she was sixteen. She is in love with Paul Sheringham, young heir of a neighbouring house. The two you guessed right, meet again on that Mothering Sunday and life isn’t the same ever again.
The book is about her life, the love that she stumbles on and what happens thereof. I wish I could say more but I just cannot. You would have to read the book to figure that one out. The writing is superlative. People say that “Waterland” or “Last Orders” is his best work. I think hands down this one is. The writing is precise and yet says so much given the scope of the book.

The story is of Jane’s understanding of the world and how she comes to the conclusion and learns to make peace with her situation. All I can say is that the book has these fantastic metaphors and one-liners that will stay with you long after you have finished the book.

Book Review: On Looking: Eleven Walks with Expert Eyes by Alexandra Horowitz

Title: On Looking: Eleven Walks with Expert Eyes
Author: Alexandra Horowitz
Publisher: Scribner
ISBN: 978-1439191255
Genre: Non-Fiction
Pages: 320
Source: Publisher
Rating: 5/5

We think we see all the time. We think we observe. We also think we possibly know the world around us the way we are meant to. We see what we expect to most of the time. Maybe our mind conditions itself to show us only those things which we want to and the ones that we do not want to, well, they just get hidden. It could happen anywhere. In a familiar neighbourhood or maybe in a place you have never been to before. Maybe it is all about perspective or maybe about security, however it exists in all of us. The way we see and perceive of our surroundings or rather what we do not see.

“On Looking: Eleven Walks with Expert Eyes” by Alexandra Horowitz is a book that maybe does not teach you how to look, but definitely provides some refreshing perspectives on the subject. The premise of the book is simple: Walking around the same path in a city with different people, almost eleven people or as she says twelve, and getting their point of view. The people ranged from her son to well-known illustrator Maira Kalman to a sound designer, bringing not only different perspectives but also making her and the readers think about our own perceptions.

I have loved almost everything about the book. From the way it is written to its premise. Sometimes it did become a little stretch; however I ignored it very easily with the turn of the page. “On Looking” brings together several elements at one time – it speaks of a simple everyday act, of different people performing it, through the same track and yet provides so much in the form of perceptions and how different people discover different things.

The book is definitely interesting and well written. Very rarely do I come across something in the non-fiction genre that catches my attention, but when it does, I savour it and mostly end up enjoying it as well. We hardly pay any attention to our senses and this book is a reminder of that fact. What it also does with its simplistic writing and views, is makes you want to see things differently. To me that is the highlight of this wondrous book that ultimately speaks of seeing things closer to you than to go in search of them far and beyond. A great read for sure.

Affiliate Link:

Buy On Looking from Flipkart.com