Birds of a Lesser Paradise - Stories

Informationen zum Autor Megan Mayhew Bergman Klappentext Exploring the way our choices and relationships are shaped by the menace and beauty of the natural world, Megan Mayhew Bergman's powerful and heartwarming collection captures the surprising moments when the pull of our biology becomes evident, when love or fear collide with good sense, or when our attachment to an animal or wild place can't be denied.Birds of a Lesser Paradise   I fell for Smith the day my father hit his first hole-in-one on his homemade golf course. Dad had spent years shaping the earth in our backyard until he had two holes that landed somewhere between an extravagant minigolf spread and a Jack Nicklaus par-72.             Mae! my father yelled, hoisting his nine-iron into the air. I did it!             He was a couple hundred yards away, and because I didn’t think my voice would carry, I jumped up and down a few times and clapped my hands, trying to appear visibly thrilled. But I was self-conscious with Smith standing behind me, his hands stuffed into the pockets of his army-green cargo pants, an anxious scowl on his almost beautiful face.             Dad sauntered off to pluck the winning ball from the hole, long, white beard trailing in the wind, his spaniel, Betsy, two steps behind. It was hardly fifty degrees out, but Dad was wearing shorts and hiking boots. He was nearing seventy, but he had the bulging calf muscles of a man half his age.             I want to see birds no one else has seen, Smith was saying. I printed out the checklist for North Carolina. How soon can we mark these off?             Slow down, I said, smiling.             I don’t know if I can tell a common goldeneye from a loon, he said. Is that important?             He followed me to our picnic table, which was soft from rot and green with moss.             Smith stuck his fingers into his bramble-thick hair, hair the color of sea grass. It seemed inclined to one side, like a plant reaching for the sun. He wore a paint-flecked T-shirt covered in a school of dolphin fish.             First, I said, let me tell you what we can see here in the Great Dismal Swamp.             I opened our brochure, pushed it toward him like a menu. We had a chunk of land outside of town that had been in my father’s family for two generations. We lived in his ancestral home and ran Pocosin Birds, our bird-watching business, from the property.             In April, I began, birders can expect to sight fifty to one hundred bird species in the swamp.             Are you reading backward? Smith asked.             I have it memorized, I said.             I studied his face. His left eye was deep brown, his right hazel. For a moment, I wondered if he had a glass eye.             Eyes like David Bowie, I said, nodding my head in approval.             Are you going to take me into the swamp? he asked. He smiled. He was lean and dark from the sun. I couldn’t tell if he was twenty-five or just short of forty, impoverished or on the receiving end of a trust fund. When he smiled, he looked like too much fun to be thirty, as if he wasn’t tired of the world yet.             Typically, I said, we help our clients assemble the correct gear and map a course. We drop you off at daybreak.   &n Zusammenfassung An “astonishing debut collection! by a writer reminiscent of such greats as Alice Munro! Elizabeth Strout! and even Chekhov” (Sara Gruen! author of Water for Elephants )! focusing on women navigating relationships with humans! animals! and the natural world. Exploring the way our choices and relationships are shaped by the menace and beauty of the natural world! Megan Mayhew Bergman’s powerful and heartwarming collection captures the surprising moments when the pull of our biology becomes evide...

Product details

• Authors: Megan M Bergman, Megan Mayhew Bergman, Megan Mayhew Bergman
• Publisher: Simon & Schuster USA
• Languages: English
• Product format: Paperback / Softback
• Released: 06.11.2012
• EAN: 9781451643367
• ISBN: 978-1-4516-4336-7
• No. of pages: 256
• Subjects: Fiction > Narrative literature; Fiction > Narrative literature > Contemporary literature (from 1945)