McNamer is a wordsmith of rare artistry who can take your breath away with a sentence describing a fairly average habit of weather. She’s funny too, combining flawless prose with cutting cultural commentary ... But McNamer’s characters are the true prize, what with the multitudes they contain and the way their stories slowly unspool and intermingle ... Even when it hurts — and, if you have anything in the way of feelings, this novel will make you weep — Aviary is a cleansing antidote to the last few years of political and cultural turmoil, a salve to combat our still-raging health crisis, a tonic for our social media spinout ... this quietly important book offers hope as it tackles grief and isolation and our essential humanity. It is an incontrovertible fact that we live and we inevitably die. Yet, we’re here until we’re not, and it’s what we do while we’re here that changes everything. That, you might say, is the secret of ongoingness.
Like the mountain ranges that rim Pheasant Run’s hometown, McNamer’s prose reliably rises to magnificence. While her style verges on the commercial, peppered with staccato sentence fragments and chapters that end with dramatic, splashy statements that sweep the reader onto the next page, the sentiment is never cheap ... The ending verges dangerously close to happily-ever-after, but then the author stutters the timeline one final time, giving an ominous hint of the future, which is the reader’s present.
Rotating between the viewpoints of an eccentric cast...Ms. McNamer unfolds the mystery of the crime while developing a dark, at times comic, portrait of the 'final aloneness' of old age. This is, on one level, an infuriating cautionary tale about the opportunities available to those willing to fleece aging Boomers ... Why should they fight back? But by the end of this underdog novel, Ms. McNamer has developed poignant reasons that they do.
McNamer masterfully swoops in and out of the experiences of a varied cast of characters ... The early scenes evoke a wistful sense of loss, grief, and abandonment reminiscent of Kate Walbert’s Our Kind (2004) before the narrative smoothly transitions into a fascinating whodunit. McNamer weaves into this narrative the ripple effects of the 2008 financial crisis and the mismanagement of retirement communities, a setting that is particularly relevant now considering the way COVID-19 has ravaged these communities. With beautifully realized characters, a wonderfully constructed plot, and some understated but powerful prose, this novel is a delight from start to finish.
With so many (perhaps too many) characters and story threads, one worries whether McNamer (will be able to bring them together by the end, but she does. The conclusion is satisfying, but mention of a mysterious illness afflicting one resident returning from a cruise in early 2020 casts an ominous shadow. Recommended for readers eager for nonquaint novels about seniors.
... solid ... Though a few too many subplots make this feel overstuffed, McNamer brings great care to describing her main characters as they gain a renewed purpose for living. This is worth a spin.
Much of the writing is quite lyrical ... Still, some passages are overwritten, and some plot points seem dubious. The novel also has a bleak undertow, though Maki’s wife, Rhonda, an animal whisperer, exudes eccentric charm and brightens the scenes she’s in. A quasi-happy ending is preceded by many casualties—some of which seem arbitrary ... Richly drawn characters in search of a more compelling narrative.
