The Gravity of Birds - by Tracy Guzeman (Paperback)

Book Synopsis

A debut novel already destined to be a book club favorite. "With its deft interweaving of psychological complexity and riveting narrative momentum, with its gorgeous prose and poetic justice, The Gravity of Birds is about sibling rivalry, tragedies, and resurrections. And it's irresistibly exquisite" (San Francisco Chronicle).Forty-four years after the brilliant young painter, Thomas Bayber, first meets Alice and Natalie Kessler, Bayber unveils a never-before-seen work, Kessler Sisters--a provocative painting depicting the young Thomas, Alice, and Natalie. Bayber asks Dennis Finch, an art history professor, and Stephen Jameson, an eccentric young art authenticator, to sell the painting. But their task becomes more complicated when the artist requires that they first locate Alice and Natalie, who seem to have disappeared. Told in alternating chapters that weave revelations about the sisters' past with clues Finch and Jameson discover in the present, this story sets three characters on a collision course with their histories, showing how families tear themselves apart and then try to bind themselves together again, not always creating the same fabric. The Gravity of Birds "combines the drama of warring sisters, the mystery of a missing painting, and the sorrow of lost love into a haunting elegy that will...leave you breathless" (Tiffany Baker, author of The Little Giant of Aberdeen County).

Review Quotes

"If literary fiction is on the verge of extinction . . . Tracy Guzeman's The Gravity of Birds ought to inspire new hope for an endangered species. With its deft interweaving of psychological complexity and riveting narrative momentum, with its gorgeous prose and poetic justice, Guzeman's book is about sibling rivalry, tragedies, and resurrections. And it's irresistibly exquisite."

About the Author

Tracy Guzeman lives in the San Francisco Bay Area. Her work has appeared in Gulf Coast, Vestal Review, and Glimmer Train Stories. The Gravity of Birds is her first novel