Narrator and protagonist Fabian Vas, an illustrator of birds, lives in a small town in Newfoundland in 1911. He admits to killing Botho August, the town’s lighthouse keeper. The novel reads as his confession – what led up to the murder, and what happened in the years afterward. It is not a traditional mystery, since we know Fabian killed August from the first page. The reader is drawn into the story in trying to figure out why Fabian would have done such a thing.

The harsh landscape plays a key role in this story – the sea, the cliffs, the elements. The imagery and descriptions of Fabian’s artworks are well-done. The narrative, like the setting, feels remote and cold. Fabian seems to be drifting through life with no direction. This is a book about decisions and choices, and that the lack of choosing is also a decision.

I felt a sense of vague discomfort in reading this book. Perhaps this is due to the author’s skill in creating a menacing tone. The characters are not particularly likeable, and it was difficult to care about them. At the end I did not feel I knew Fabian any better than at the start. I found it at times engaging and at other times frustrating.
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From the very first page of The Bird Artist, Howard Norman wants to draw you into the story by having his main character, Fabian Vas, nonchalantly admit that he murdered lighthouse keeper Botho August. The hook is why. Why did seemingly quiet and charming Vas kill August? Why does he admit to it so readily and so casually? Norman will drop other mysteries along the way to keep the reader strung along. Like, why is it risky to write about Fabian's aunt? Fabian lives in Witless Bay, Newfoundland. Ir all begins when Fabian befriends town troublemaker Margaret. As a thirteen year old she accidentally killed a man. Soon their relationship blossoms into the "with benefits" type despite his arranged marriage to a distant cousin. Maybe it is a cultural thing, but the curious thing about Fabian is that nothing seems to really faze him. His apprenticeship with bird artist Isaac Sprague is shortlived when Sprague disappears in the spring of 1911. Fabian blames himself for being too much a critic of his mentor's work. When he is moments away from marrying a complete stranger and being arrested for murder almost at the same time, Fabian shows little emotion. His emotion amounts to getting a little nervous when law enforcement shows up. For all of Fabian's calm, Margaret is his exact opposite. She was my favorite character. Motherless and meandering, Margaret sets fire to life's challenges. You end up rooting for their dysfunctional relationship no matter what the cost. ( )

Hard to review because I did not like or feel any connection with any of the main characters at all:

Fabian Vas = too weak to stand up to parents arranging his marriage and his life
or to Margaret for killing his mother or to admit a murder
Margaret Handle = assertive, yes, but dishonest, responsible for two murders and disrespectful of all
Alaric Vas = self-centered liar and cheat
Orkney Vas = murdered birds for their feathers

The only person I admired and who carried the plot was Enoch. ( )

Set amidst the backdrop of Newfoundland in the early twentieth century, The Bird Artist is an interesting read full of writing contradictions which probably shouldn't work yet somehow do. The writing is spare yet the atmosphere of the small coastal town's natural environment is an enveloping combination of the wilds of the natural coastal environment and the suffocating smallness of the local community. Pace of life on the island is slow and the writing reflects this, despite the reader finding out in the first paragraph that the protagonist has murdered the lighthouse keeper. It's an interesting juxtaposition; the gravity of the felony versus the unhurried first person narration through a protagonist who seems quietly honest and uncomplicated and at odds with the crime he admits to the reader he has committed.

For some the pace of this book may challenge their attention, but I really enjoyed it. The characters were really well developed - flawed and complex yet at the same time wholly simple and honest in what they're expecting from life. Norman created an an especially wonderful feisty female character who lives by her own rules and morals, to hang with the opinions of the gossiping villagers. A young Helena Bonham Carter would have played a wonderful Margaret if ever they'd made a film of this novel.

Another hit from my personal selections out of Bowie's 100 list. I'll look out for more from this author.

4.5 stars - a great read if you enjoy slow, spare writing with brooding atmosphere. ( )

This was the first Howard Norman novel I picked up, after chancing upon it at the library. I checked it out mainly for the title, as a bird-obsessed person myself, and ended up enjoying it far more than I expected to. Norman is criticized for writing sex scenes with the sophistication of teenage fumbling but these interactions have a vulnerability to them that I find appealing.

Also, his female characters are surprisingly more dynamic, developed, and engaging than his male characters, something I find rare in male authors. I subsequently read two other of his novels (The Museum Guard, and The Haunting of L) and found this to be true for the characters in those books as well. The only other male author I can think of immediately who creates such female characters is Haruki Murakami. ( )