Before Women Had Wings - Softcover

Connie May Fowler

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0552997218 ISBN 13: 9780552997218

Publisher: Bantam Doubleday Dell, 1997

Synopsis

In 1965 Bird, christened Avocet, aged six, is living with her family in a Florida citrus grove. Daddy and Mama, who run a general store, fight frequently and drink too much; Bird and her older sister Phoebe are beaten equally frequently. Daddy is eventually found dead in his car; Mama and the girls leave the grove and move into a trailer in the grounds of a motel outside Tampa. Bird, against Mama's wishes, makes friends with Miss Zora, a black woman in a neighbouring trailer. Miss Zora is a kindly white witch, whose wisdom and herbal remedies provide a mainstay in Bird's difficult life. Bird runs away to the city to escape her mother's cruelty, and meets a gentle biker who brings her home. Mama finally agrees to get help for her alcoholism, and Miss Zora takes Bird and Phoebe to live with her at her home in South Florida. 'Stinging with tenderness, her best yet, a necessary story with an unstoppable emotional force' - Amy Tan 'Fowler's deeply moving, triumphant third novel brilliantly conveys a child's bewilderment ... She sweeps the narrative along with plangent, lyrical prose ... and establishes herself as a writer of formidable talent' - Publishers Weekly

About this title

Review

Raised in an atmosphere of poverty and violence, 6-year-old Avocet Abigail Jackson, or Bird as she's called, is wise beyond her years. After falling to abuse by her alcoholic parents and the destructive upheaval of moving from one flop house to the next, her one solace is Jesus, whom she fantasizes as a possible suitor. While her older sister discovers romance with a local boy, Bird discovers Miss Zora, a mysterious black woman who lives alone in a cottage near Bird's school and comes to teach the little girl about dignity and her own capacity for forgiveness.

From the Publisher

Told through the eyes of 9-year-old Bird Jackson, BEFORE WOMEN HAD WINGS is a poignant tale of resilience and triumph in the face of abuse and poverty. When you read it, you are somewhat glad that it's fiction because you hate to think that a child could be treated so awfully. I discovered, however, that this book is -- unfortunately -- based on a true story. The author Connie May Fowler grew up poor and fatherless in St. Augustine, Florida. She and her sister were frequently targets of their mother's alcoholic rage. As a child, Connie sought refuge from her awful circumstances through words, first through reading and then through writing. Connie has said that for her writing was a kind of salvation. You sense this in her writing, because her tone never comes off as being the least bit bitter. After reading her book, I was dying to meet her. I had seen her on the Oprah Winfrey Show, when she talked about her book, which Oprah made into a Oprah Winfrey Presents movie on ABC-TV (in which Oprah and Ellen Barkin starred). She seemed so sweet, you just couldn't imagine anyone hurting her. I finally got the opportunity to hear her read from her book when she appeared at the Miami Book Fair last fall. She is a marvelous reader! If you ever have the chance to hear her, please go. Her voice has this wonderful lyrical quality, and she has a true appreciation for words and their meaning. I feel privileged to know Connie, and I can't wait for her to write her next book, since I'm now a true fan! -- Jennifer RichardsBallantine Books Publicity

About this edition

• Publisher: Bantam Doubleday Dell
• Publication date: 1997
• ISBN 10: 0552997218
• ISBN 13: 9780552997218
• Binding: Paperback
• Language: English