Fabulous Fiction Firsts #400 -The Bumbling Ornithologist

Sat, 05/18/2013 - 6:49pm by muffy

No doubt some of you read the NPR review of debut novelist Brian Kimberling's Snapper * - hilarious, poignant, all-too-human recollections of an affable bird researcher in the Indiana backwater as he goes through a disastrous yet heartening love affair with the place and its people.

New grad Nathan Lochmueller (IU, Philosophy) stumbles onto an unlikely job tracking songbirds within one square mile of south central Indiana near Bloomington. "Told with precise and memorable prose in beautifully rendered, time-shifted vignettes, Snapper richly evokes the emotions of coming to adulthood". The poor pay is compensated by the woods that provide solace and the colorful, if occasionally scarifying, array of characters: He meets diner patrons who reply to kids' letters to Santa Claus, would-be mushroom-hunters, ersatz Klansmen and dimwitted bureaucrats who legislate on the environment without knowing the first thing about it".

Southern Indiana native, "Kimberling (a former birdwatcher himself) writes gracefully about absurdity, showing a rich feeling for the whole range of human tragicomedy. A delightful debut."

Will appeal to fans who enjoyed the quirky characters and colorful setting in Karen Russell's Swamplandia!.

* = starred review