Monday, September 2, 2013

Paint The Bird-Georgeann Packard

Paint The Bird

Georgeann Packard

The Permanent Press, Jul 22 2013, $28.00

www.thepermanentpress.com

ISBN: 9781579623173



In February 2010, betrayal by her husband and her best friend leaves the soul of Reverend Sarah Obadias broken. Acrimoniously the sixty-nine year old Sarah cannot turn to her adult daughter for comfort as her adult child has her own life. So Sarah drinks alone at Manhattan’s Malatesta Restaurant when slightly older Abraham Darby the artist introduces himself. She explains the Old Testament story of Abraham and Sarah to him, but he counters by saying he failed as he erred with the sacrifice of his child. They go his loft where he enjoys her refined age while she muses over this is sex.



The next morning they take the train to Carroll Gardens in Brooklyn. Abraham gives a eulogy talking about his brief fling relationship with his son Yago’s mother Costa Rican painter Alejandra Morales Diaz back in 1970 that led to their perfect creation in April 1971. He finishes his bitter words by asking who in the audience infected Yago. His companion is confused by his angry acerbic accusations as Abraham rants at himself, his co-creator and his gay son’s friends and lovers. Afterward Sarah continues her depressed spiral deeper into bewildered despair when she meets Alejandra and Yago who drowned as a little boy.



Paint the Bird is a strong allegorical tale that questions what a family really is in a world of changing relational dynamics. Character-driven, Sarah and readers will learn the true meaning of family and the importance of living life summed up by Ferris Bueller in his Day Off: “Life moves pretty fast. If you don't stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it”.



Harriet Klausner

No comments: