The Wild Swans. This item is unavailable.The Wild Swans

This novel focuses on two outcasts on two journeys in two eras. In 1689 England, Lady Eliza Grey's 11 brothers are turned into swans. Rejected by her father, Eliza is flown to America by her brothers where she has a chance to save them--until she is accused of witchcraft. In the second story, set in 1981 New York, Elias Latham has AIDS, is banished from his father's house, and must learn to live on the streets. Like Eliza, Elias struggles to understand the suffering he must endure.

Parallel tales of love and persecution give this multilayered fantasy added poignancy, although not the cohesion of a tightly plotted novel. One story strand, set in 1689, relates the labors of Eliza Grey, disowned daughter of the Earl of Exeter, to save her 11 brothers from a curse that transforms them into a flock of wild swans every dawn to dusk. Following their magical flight to the New World, Eliza, obeying the instructions of a fairy, applies herself to weaving enchanted shirts that will break the spell, and maintains the stoic vow of absolute silence imposed upon her by the fairy for the task's duration, even when her misunderstanding husband and their Salem-like village accuse her of witchcraft. Kerr (Emerald House Rising) alternates chapters from this tender fairy tale with episodes from the life of Elias Latham, a young gay man living in New York in the 1980s. Disowned by his family, he is saved from hustling on the city streets by Sean Donnelly, a gentle musician and writer who encourages Elias's talents as a photographer, introduces him to Manhattan's gay subculture and eventually becomes his lover. Elias reciprocates by helping Sean achieve reconciliation with his own estranged family when the pair are stricken with AIDS. Despite subtle correspondences between the two storiesAincluding shared names, common images and mutual reflections on sibling and parental relationshipsAthere is not enough synergy to fuse their themes or distinguish either as more than a simple parable. Nevertheless, Kerr's characters are sensitively rendered, and their plights make for a moving meditation on the ties that bind individuals to family and community.
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