The Bird Sisters, Enchanting...

Rebecca Rasmussen began her campaign to sell her book, The Bird Sisters, early and often. I ran into her on She Writes, and was enchanted enough to put her book on pre-order for several months ahead last fall. I received it when it released in April and only just now had the time to read it.

Once I found the author's rhythm, I was enchanted by her story-telling technique. Making liberal use of flashbacks, one day in the life of these mid-seventies spinster sisters never painted a more poignant tale.

Milly and Twiss grew up essentially on their own and ended up that way out of a devotion that takes my breath away. Rasmussen shows what famial love and hatred looks like when allowed to fully bloom. The story that recounts the summer the girls' lives changed forever is ignited by a comment from a visitor who responded to Milly's accidental declaration to her young daughter that Santa Claus is a myth. The harsh return comment sends both women back to the fateful summer that is the reason they are spinsters and alone in the present.

The Bird Sisters is not pop fiction, and uses beautiful language and technique to tell a story lacquered over frail color. Once revealed to the open air, the magic of a wanna-be spoiled man and his bitter wife unable to get past themselves to parent their teenage daughters and neice, bubbles and falls away fleck by fleck until only the plain surface is revealed.

The Bird Sisters: A novel, by Rebecca Rasmussen

Rebecca Rasmussen's debut novel doesn't come out until 2011, but I'm already waiting in eager anticipation. Rebecca is a Wisconsin native now living in MO. See The Bird Sisters website and blog for more information. Preorder the book on Amazon.

About the Book:

When a bird flies into a window in Spring Green, Wisconsin, sisters Milly and Twiss get a visit. Twiss listens to the birds’ heartbeats, assessing what she can fix and what she can’t, while Milly listens to the heartaches of the people who’ve brought them. The two sisters have spent their lives nursing people and birds back to health.


But back in the summer of 1947, Milly was known as a great beauty with emerald eyes and Twiss was a brazen wild child who never wore a dress or did what she was told. That was the summer their golf pro father got into an accident that cost him both his swing and his charm, and their mother, the daughter of a wealthy jeweler, finally admitted their hardscrabble lives wouldn’t change. It was the summer their priest, Father Rice, announced that God didn’t exist and ran off to Mexico, and a boy named Asa finally caught Milly’s eye. And most unforgettably, it was the summer their cousin Bett came down from a town called Deadwater and changed the course of their lives forever.


The Bird Sisters is forthcoming in hardcover from Random House, Spring 2011.

To read Rebecca's great story of how her book came about and the family member who spurred the story, and to read an excerpt, please visit her The Bird Sisters website.