Bird of Passage (Book Review)

 

 

Bird of Passage

by Catherine Czerkawska (2011/2020)

This is a book that I read for the first time back in 2014, but just reread. I can't find that I wrote a review about it in 2014, so doing it now.

The story, starting in the 1960s, is set on a Scottish Island. I don't think the island has a name in the book, but the descriptions remind of the Outer Hebrides (as I know them from other books - and blogs). 

A young boy with traumatic background, Finn O'Malley, has been sent from a monastic school in Ireland to work with the potato harvest on this island over summer. There he becomes friends with the farmer's granddaughter, Kirsty Galbreath. (She and her mother live with the grandfather on the farm.) The farmer takes a liking to the boy and arranges for him to come back there the next few summers as well. When Finn and Kirsty get older, they part ways, though. Finn leaves the island (without telling Kirsty why or whereto) and goes off in search of his roots, and to find out why back in his early childhood he was parted from his mother, to be brought up by monks running a very harsh school in Ireland. Kirsty misses Finn, and never forgets him. But she gets on with her life, marries a rich landowner on the island, gives birth to two daughters, and makes a career for herself as an artist (painter). Many years later, she and Finn meet again...

Although slow-paced, it's a captivating story; also leaving me with a sense of having spent time in the landscape as well as getting to know the characters. I have read several books by Catherine Czerkawska, and find that she is one of those authors with the power to leave me with impressions of setting and atmosphere that continue to linger years after I may have forgotten both the general plot and various details. 

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The reason I was reminded of the book this autumn and decided to reread it was that the author wrote about it on her blog, which I also follow. This was when the Kindle book was on special offer in Britain for a week back in October. I already had it (since 2014), but when I looked it up on my Kindle, I had trouble getting it to load properly at first. Later I found that it had updated itself to a later edition, though; so that's probably what caused some temporary trouble. It now says © 2020  - and that can't possibly have been in my original download from 2014! I also got the new cover. (So there, another advantage that may come with certain Kindle books... Updates to the latest edition!) The Author's Note at the back adds the background information that a source of inspiration for her in writing this book was Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë. Rereading it again now, I can see that. (Whether I also saw it in 2014, I can't remember!)