The Book of Dead Birds
Gayle Brandeis
2003
This novel tells the story of Ava Sing Lo, a girl who has been accidentally killing her mother’s birds since childhood. Now in her twenties, Ava travels from San Diego to the Salton Sea to volunteer with environmental activists trying to save thousands of birds poisoned by agricultural runoff. Her mother, Helen, is haunted by her own past. She was drawn into prostitution on a segregated American army base in Korea, then later abandoned in California after giving birth to a mixed-race child. As Ava works to save dying birds, she also confronts her mother's traumatic history, slowly unraveling the emotional distance between them in her search for identity, reconciliation, and peace.
Told in lyrical prose, The Book of Dead Birds explores themes of inherited trauma, survival, racial identity, and environmental decay. Brandeis parallels the poisoning of birds with the emotional toll of generational pain, using Ava and Helen’s relationship to reflect how violence, both personal and systemic, echoes across time. The novel bridges cultural and geographic landscapes, moving between Korea and the American West, as well as the past and present. Winner of the Bellwether Prize for fiction promoting social change, the book stands as both a meditation on mother-daughter bonds and a call to witness the interconnectedness of personal and ecological healing.
About the Author:
Gayle Brandeis is an award-winning American author whose work spans fiction, nonfiction, and poetry, often weaving together themes of social justice, embodiment, and emotional truth. Born in Chicago, she holds a B.A. in “Poetry and Movement” from the University of Redlands and an MFA in Fiction from Antioch University. Her novel The Book of Dead Birds won the inaugural Bellwether Prize for Fiction, awarded by Barbara Kingsolver for work that promotes social change. Brandeis has since published several novels, poetry collections, and a memoir, and her writing has appeared in Salon, The Nation, and Best American Essays.