A Catalog of Birds

May 8, 2017
Harrington (Alice Bliss) reexamines familiar topics in her second novel, tenderly sketching a portrait of war’s lasting impact on veterans who returned from the conflict alive but not entirely whole and the loved ones who were waiting for them at home. Billy Flynn, a young man with a deep connection to the wildlife in his sleepy upstate New York hometown, struggles to reassemble his shattered life after his medic helicopter is shot down in Vietnam. Billy’s failed attempt to rescue his copilot leaves him with severe burns, nerve damage that destroys his ability to fly or draw, and guilt-laced anger that drowns out his efforts to sleep at night or pursue his old ambitions during the day. His younger sister, Nell, puts her college plans on hold as she fights to hold her disintegrating family together. The narrative progresses slowly, digging unflinchingly into the wounds that linger long after a battlefield has been emptied. While some plot threads are left dangling at the conclusion, Harrington excels at creating believable characters with nuanced motivations. Her prose sings, sweeping through heavy topics with a quiet sense of resilience and buoyant hope.

May 1, 2017
The Vietnam War traumatizes a soldier and his family.In her quietly affecting second novel, playwright, lyricist, and librettist Harrington (Alice Bliss, 2011) returns to upstate New York, the setting of her previous fiction, and to a family grappling with the horrific war injury sustained by their son, Billy. When his helicopter was shot down, Billy alone survived, severely burned. A hospital stay is followed by challenging physical therapy that leaves him despondent, afraid he will never draw again--and drawing is his passion. The bird catalog of the title refers to Billy's field journals, depicting in precise, brilliant detail the proliferation of birds he observed in woods, lakes, and fields. Drawing birds, he says, became "a doorway, a bridge....It's how I lived in the world." The central relationship of the novel is between Billy and his younger sister, Nell, with whom he shares the wonders of nature. Frustrated and powerless to help Billy, Nell watches in despair as he succumbs to drink, depression, and nightmares. Although Billy is a sympathetic character, his traumas are by now familiar in novels and memoirs of the Vietnam War, his distinction being his artistic talent and connection to nature. Yet the natural world that he so deeply loves is being destroyed: Nell documents songbirds' levels of mercury, a toxin that attacks the birds' nervous systems, distracting them from sitting on their eggs long enough to hatch. Billy reports on a "rainbow moniker" of chemical agents used in Vietnam; Nell's father engages in a project to monitor water and soil contamination from pesticides. Subplots focus on Nell's deepening love for the solid, dependable Harlow, also a survivor of war; and the unsolved disappearance of Nell's best friend, and Billy's love, Megan. That mystery underscores Billy's sense of loss and the community's fear of being caught in a whirl of uncontrollable events--the war far from home and an unknown threat close by. It is a community, filled with those "suffering in mind, body or spirit." A sensitive rendering of shattered lives.

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Starred review from July 1, 2017
Nell Flynn is in her senior year of high school when her best friend disappears and her older brother reappears. No one from their small town in upstate New York knows what happened to Megan, and her mysterious absence is an added burden for Megan's boyfriend, Billy Flynn, just back from Vietnam after a fiery crash left him with debilitating burns on the right side of his body. Nell is pleased to have her brother home, but the companionable Billy, who taught her how to appreciate nature, is no more. Once an accomplished artist and amateur field scientist, Billy is faced with the loss of his writing hand, as well as much of his hearing, smell, and taste, all casualties of chemical warfare. As months go by with no sign of Megan and little progress with Billy's rehabilitation, his family and friends try everything to keep him from drifting further away, while he struggles to find meaning as everything he loved is now out of reach. Stunning natural descriptions provide a rich backdrop for Harrington's (Alice Bliss, 2011) beautifully articulated coming-of-age story, which captures the pain of loved ones grappling with the after effects of war.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2017, American Library Association.)