The Bird Artist

A National Book Award Finalist

Howard Norman's The Bird Artist, the first book of his Canadian trilogy, begins in 1911. Its narrator, Fabian Vas, is a bird artist: he draws and paints the birds of Witless Bay, his remote Newfoundland coastal village home.

In the first paragraph of his tale, Fabian reveals that he has murdered the village lighthouse keeper, Botho August. Later, he confesses precisely who and what drove him to his crime. The Bird Artist is a measured, profoundly engrossing story of passion, betrayal, guilt, and redemption between men and women.

Praise

"A classic story . . . All that is splendid and spectacular in the book is simply light, magically employed to seek out what is real."—Richard Eder, Los Angeles Times Book Review

"Bewitching . . . glows like a night light in the reader's mind."—Michiko Kakutani, The New York Times

"Completely original and compelling . . . Written with great intelligence, wit, and clarity."—Anne Whitehouse, The Boston Sunday Globe

"[The Bird Artist] combines colorful backwoods eccentrics and gothic melodrama that strongly resembles the work of film director David Lynch."—Library Journal

About the Author(s)

Howard Norman

Howard Norman was also a National Book Award finalist for The Northern Lights. His other works include the novels The Museum Guard and The Haunting of L., as well as The Chauffeur, a collection of stories. Norman has received a Lannan Award in fiction. He resides in Vermont and Washington, D.C.