Literary Life | The Birdhouse by Kelly Simmons | Review

It might not have been the most thrilling plot I have ever read but The Birdhouse wasn't exactly a great fit for my usual niche of high adrenaline page turners. It wasn't that the plot lacked substance or that the characters lacked dimension; I think it mostly comes down to taste and that perhaps my palette has been spoiled recently with some fantastic fiction. Like I said, it wasn't a bad book, it just wouldn't make my top ten. But feel free to disagree with me on that.

The novel itself jumps around chronologically, with the help of dated diary entries that central character Ann completes throughout her life. I thought the little comments on the types of bath and her choice of breakfast were great additions, both to the plot and to the sense of Ann's character. It takes a long time for the past to properly unfurl. We eventually find out that Ann's daughter Emma dies as a child, that Ann herself suffers from breast cancer and that her father isn't who she thinks he is, all of which add to the depth of secrecy this family has tried to shroud in the shadows. The lives of these people are tightly woven together and it's clear Simmons has given a great deal of thought into the way

 

There were still some serious strengths to this novel though. The maternal motif that essentially underpins the entire plot was masterful. Simmons really hit a stride with the varying mother-daughter relationships: Annie and Emma and Tinsley and Ellie especially. Simmons stretches the paradigm to encompass Tinsley and Ann too, and then again in the form of the grandmother-granddaughter relationship that flourishes between Ann and Ellie.

As much of the novel centres around the bonds between mothers and children, the chosen quote is unsurprisingly a summation of that topic. When remembering back to the death of her mother, Ann describes the pain she felt after seeing her mother for the final time.

"It connected us, that pain, like a string of Christmas lights, an electric current."

 What The Birdhouse proves most undeniably then is that not every drama needs the world to be ending. Sometimes family secrets can be just as destructive.