Georgeann PackardRecensioni

This review was written for LibraryThing Member Giveaway

I don't read much fiction and was dismayed when I saw it was in the present tense. I need not have worried since Paint the bird caught my attention from the beginning. It is the story of a female African American clergyperson, two painters, a homosexual couple and their son, along with the son's birth mother. And a fascinating story it is, especially since one of the main characters (Yago) died a few days before the novel's start. And the title adds to the fascination as well.

The author has named her chapters after colors used in paint. As a stitcher, I could not transfer the color to DMC floss numbers. (And from experience, I know that a painter sees off white as what I would call a mocha brown. I have the woodwork to prove it!) So I could not see how the colors related to the story.

I found myself trying to decide what denomination Sarah serves. She describes herself as mainline, not Baptist. She is called a pastor, which is used in the Lutheran and Presbyterian churches as well as many independent churches, but definitely not the Episcopal Church, which is the church of the surviving spouse in the novel. However, in the end, this fact didn't matter at all.½

Relationships as fragile as apple blossom grow from hearts as wounded as the small cramped fruit of an untended tree, needing space to mend, in this tale of lands and cultures separated by history and bound by inability to heal. The story is beautifully told and deeply rooted in the orchards of Empire, Michigan. The language is couched in the complex points of view of disparate characters and the heart-rending poetry of a warrior’s soul. Together with senses, growth and seasons, it all combines to make one truly beautiful novel that holds you tight and won’t let go.

Nobody’s perfect in this tale—some are maybe more imperfect than others, while many hide past sins and love all painted a different shade. Nobody’s evil, though there are deep mistakes behind each of us. Nobody’s totally true or totally false to themselves or to those they love. But two wounded protagonists—Christian man and Muslim woman—struggle through it all to find a sense of self, of a self worth believing in.

With much to heal and much to learn; with seasons of growth and nurture and harvest to come; with occupier maybe occupied, and landowner only leasing what belongs to the land itself; the place called Empire has a tale to tell, and these are its characters.

I love the poems and the poetry of this novel. I love the deep sense that these people are real (at least, real to me). I love the parts where I can relate and the parts where I can learn. And I love the seasons of the soul. The Occupation of Zaima tells an unpredictably beautiful tale, well-nurtured, splashed with coincidence’s cruel caprice like rainstorms in spring, and filled with the scents that cross cultures, the beauty of nature, and the sideways remembrance of heaven. It’s a truly haunting, captivating, sensual and powerful read.

Disclosure: I was given a preview edition and I offer my honest review. I honestly love it!

Georgeann Packard's Fall Asleep Forgetting first came to my attention as a finalist for last year's Lambda Award. As a tale of interwoven lives (including a suicidal restaurateur, an adulteress, a jealous transvestite, a homophobic war veteran, and young tomboy who holds it all together), set in a rather unique trailer park, it manages to successfully hold its own against such a diverse cast of characters.

Although slow moving and, at times, a little repetitive, this is a wonderfully poetic story that is as much a joy to 'hear' as it is to 'read.' It takes a strange road to get started, jumping decades and characters, but there's a theme of loneliness that ties it all together. The story itself doesn't really get moving until the discovery of a body on the beach, but that's okay because it's an interesting ride getting there.

It may seem odd to talk of a story that's all about relationships, and to say it's haunted by a theme of loneliness, but that's part of why I enjoyed it so much. There's nothing obvious or expected about the writing, and you really have to accept the characters quirks in order to appreciate this scattered glimpse into their lives. This is also a novel about obsessions and excesses - sexual, emotional, physical, and culinary - and about the consequences of those excesses.

This wasn't the story I expected, but sometimes that's for the best. I would much rather be surprised and delighted by a tale, than to come away feeling . . . well, complacent. On the one hand, I think it could have benefited from a stronger focus on fewer characters but, on the other hand, I'm not sure it would have worked as well without them. I've thought about that for a few days now, and I still can't make up my mind, which is just fine by me.

I almost hate to say it, because it seems so obvious to me (yet hasn't been mentioned in a single review that I've seen), this is the kind of story that seems to cry out for a David Lynch screen adaptation. If that scares you away, then it's probably best that you take a pass, but if that intrigues you, I think you'll appreciate the read.

I can only say that it was disappointing to read a book that had so much potential and fell short.

This is a delightfully strange book. You can hate it and like it at the same time.

Upon finishing, I thought immediately that this is not really a novel. It is a great "elevator speech" to a good novel. (For thse of you who don't know the term, an "elevator speech" is a concise way of getting a selling point about yourself or your idea to someone else. Scenario: You want to work in a big firm and on the way to the elevator, you encounter the CEO of the company and you will both be on the elevator. How do you convince him you are good for the job you want? Or, you are in the elevator with a publisher. How do you convince him/her that your work should be published, all within the span of an elevator ride?)

Georgeann Packard does, in my opinion, a fantastic job of putting characters together that would not normally encounter each other. She does make good use of the fact that New York City, Brooklyn and Long Island are the backdrops, so in a way, "anything goes."

However, these unlikely characters needed a lot of fleshing out. They were a little empty. Which is sad, too, because a little more development of the characters would have made you care more about them.

As it stands: older woman preacher meets older artist, they sleep together about an hour later, the next day they go to his gay son's wake (she, by the way, is now wearing his ex-wife's dress). Artist, Darby, did not have a good relationship with son or his son's partner but is tied to them by a sweetheart of a little boy they have adopted. Regrets about the son, Yago. Yago is dead but is also a ghost. Yeah, a ghost. Throw in a situation where artist Darby beats up a guy in a bar, which causes a bottle to be broken and scars his grandson's face (nothing serious) and another where the good reverend attacks a boy. Darby's ex-wife is a free spirit, who likes to sleep around with men and women.

Like I said, elevator speech.

Again, the characters need fleshing out. The story itself is good. In fact, it is so "out there", that it would work nicely. Sadly, this is a very good story that could have been a phenomenal story.

I hate to say this but this is a good "first draft. Perhaps, her next work will include more detail into the lives of her characters.

Ms. Packard, I will say this, I can see myself becoming a fan of your work as it develops. When GREAT execution comes to match your GREAT ideas, your work will be magnificent!

We have an unlikely set of characters here. There is black woman reverend, a father, Darby, who has never dealt with his feelings towards his homosexual son, the son’s partner and the mother of the homosexual couple’s child. Reverend Sara is obviously a lost soul she is having a one night stand with the father. Oh, and also Yago the HIV infected dead son who is a ghost in the story. Sounds pretty strange don’t you think. It is weirdly interesting. An interplay of clashing ideals and values. Whose are right whose are wrong? Where is all this going?

I kept wondering what message the author was trying to convey with this story. I am not sure even now what the point was. Alejandra is the mother of Yago. She tells Sara to “Put a bird there, be the bird. Soar above it all.” Alejandra is talking to Sara about the place in her dreams and how colorful it is. I think that she is talking about being yourself and letting go and making up who you want to be as you go along. That it is okay to be unique and be yourself. You are the bird. Paint the Bird is Yago’s story of who he is and the chapters are the colors that make up the bird. In each chapter we learn about the people in Yago’s life and they reveal pieces of Yago to us. Through out the book Darby learns who his son really was and becomes closer to his grandson and his son’s husband. He starts to bond with them.

I have to say that I think that this is one of the strangest books that I have ever read. I almost didn’t finish it. I really don’t recommend this one. It is not really my kind of book. When I read I want to be entertained and escape reality. This book is not one that I would normally chose. I could not connect with it. This book is not for everyone. It contains homosexuality and some situations that might be disturbing for some people. I give this book 2 out of 5 stars.

The writing in this book, style wise, was beautiful. The way of structuring sentences was rather appealing and entertaining. My biggest problem with the book was following the flow of the storyline. The basic premise and the writing style was gorgeous but it was hard to follow the storyline because the storyline was done out in a way that honestly wasn’t that cohesive. A few times I had to pause in reading to make sure I knew exactly what was supposed to be going on. If the plotting out of where the chapters were put was done a little better then the book would have been more enjoyable.

Ms Packard's language in this book is beautiful. She takes every sentence and paragraph and lays out a description that can be breathtaking. The problem is that I could not follow the flow of the book from paragraph to paragraph. There was no cohesion. I found myself having to reread, going back several pages and still feeling lost in the plot. I hope Ms Packard continues to write, since her skills with prose are remarkable but I hope she can develope more skill in her plotting. I am looking forward to her next book.

Paint the Bird deals with themes of loss and mourning: for a child, a lover, a father; for the promise of a child who grows up differently than you wanted; for faith; for youth. Packard's language is vivid and beautiful. Unfortunately, the same cannot be said of the characters, who are flat and difficult to relate to. The homophobic, father of a gay son who only finds emotional release through painting, the gay son who secretly finds solace in religion, the grieving husband and their young child, and the minister who loses her husband, her best friend, and her faith should be compelling characters, but although Packard puts them in believable situations (with a few major slip-ups surrounding the Mary Sue character of Alejandra), they just…aren't. Paint the Bird may be enjoyed in small doses for the poetic imagery, but as a novel, it just doesn’t stand up.

I received this book in exchange for an honest review. I had a very difficult time reading this book. Each chapter was almost a short story in itself. It was not done in a cohesive way. I was disappointed.

This might have made a tight short story, but as a novella, I found it a bit disappointing. An older female black minister has a crisis of faith and meets up with an artist mourning (in his own artist inspired way, of course) the death of his misunderstood gay son. We meet a few friends and family members. Not much else happens.

When the Early Reviewer galley of Georgeann Packard’s novel Paint The Bird arrived, I quickly opened the package and read the jacket notes:

“The Reverend Sarah Obadias is broken, bitter, and stripped of the reassurance of faith when she walks into a West Village restaurant in Manhattan. Here she encounters Abraham Darby, a rumpled but well-regarded painter who seduces the minister into his life of excess and emotional intensity.”
--Paint The Bird, liner notes.

Whoa! Not my kind of reading, I thought, but I opened the book thinking: A deal is a deal.

A short poem by the author introduces the title of the book and then the reader meets Sarah: she is tall, black and beautiful, and is on the cusp of her 70th birthday. There’s more—she is having a crisis of faith, which she shared with the congregation of her church, and Sarah’s husband is having an affair with her best friend. Fortunately for Sarah, she didn’t share the latter with the congregation.

The action in the novel quickly moves to the eatery mentioned in the liner notes where Sarah meets Abraham and they share confidences (he is having a crisis also). After dinner, they take a taxi to Abraham’s studio. It’s a one-night-stand, Sarah thinks, but Abraham has an unusual favor to ask…

The short novel is fast paced and tightly written: there is sex, adventure and mystery as Sarah and Abraham wrestle with their fears and doubts, but no one is murdered or seriously harmed. I liked this unusual novel and was tempted to read it straight through, but common sense prevailed and I rationed it over three days to savor it longer.

The production of the softbound galley draft by Permanent Press was gorgeous; nice dark print in readable Adobe Garamond as explained in the colophon by the author.

Give this novel a read: If you are young, read it and find out what your grand parents are up to; if you are old, read it to see what problems your cohort is having; if you are really, really old (I’m 76), read it to remember!

Carto

Sarah's life is in flux. She goes to a bar, she has a drink, someone buys her another. He is Abraham - strange coincidence and then life gets even stranger. They head to his place - what you expect happens. They are not kids. The next day he asks her to go somewhere with him, but he does not tell her where or why, but asks her to wear a dress that he has. She finds she is going to a funeral - his son's. After this all is tumultuous, crazy and full of new and different people all mourning the loss of this man's son.

Readable but I found it confusing.

Author Georgeann Packard places a quote at the beginning of Paint the Bird that plainly consigns faith to the realm of illusion. And she goes on to describe the crisis of faith suffered by her main character Sarah, who as a practicing minister, has a struggle indeed. The resulting conflict brings a sharp focus on family, loss, weakness, and redemption.

People and events in Paint the Bird spring before us, like birds spooked into flight. Sarah Obadias, a veteran preacher in an “inclusive, nurturing” church, finds herself in the company of a compelling stranger and gives in to his sensual attractions. She also falls into his life, trapped almost, and his life is rather wretched at the moment. Tall, well aged, with a generous mane of white hair, this man is named Abraham, which is appropriate for this Sarah, and for this book, which purposely echoes Bible narratives. Abraham’s son (named Yago, not Isaac) has died and the events of the novel revolve around the effects of this untimely demise.

The language in this book is vivid and urgent, as are the issues the characters must face. Ms. Packard engages us fully in this compact but eventful story. She handles the harrowing journeys of her main characters very surely, and strikes a particularly elegant chord with Abraham, the bereft father and artist who strives to understand and perhaps preserve him. This plaintive, elegiac novel tugs at our hearts as it pushes us to come to grips with its human lesson of hope and charity, even if faith comes up a little worse for wear. A very gratifying follow-up to "Fall Asleep Forgetting," Ms. Packard begins to make good on her considerable promise.

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Georgann Packard's book "Fall Asleep Forgetting" was an enjoyable reading experience for several reasons. First, her character development was authentic and ingenious. Each character held the reader's interest, leaving questions about how they came to the point in their life that brought them to the trailer park. The setting itself allows for scene after scene of circumstances affected by the trailer park itself, on the Eastern tip of Long Island. The action occurs across one summer and through the journal entries of one character and the involvement of the other characters. I felt as though each character was thoroughly believable and Packard's writing would have held my interest if it was not already intrigued by the character's themselves. It is often written like a prose poem with lovely images. Sometimes Packard writes such vividly painful scenes that the reader is captivated not only by the story but by its connection to reality. This book is difficult to describe and is worth reading so pick up a copy.½

The appreciation of a novel can occasionally come down to something as random as timing. When one reads a book too early or too late, one can miss important elements within the story. This reviewer read Lord of the Rings too late and found its cod-archaic prose akin to downing a sedative. Similarly, when reading Paradise Lost in middle school, the only thing gained was “bragging rights” since the poetry remained impenetrable. All this represents a roundabout preface for my appreciation of Georgeann Packard’s novel Fall Asleep Forgetting.

In the months leading up to September 11, 2001, the inhabitants of Cherry Grove experience life-changing events. These events disrupt things spiritual and temporal, albeit in a non-linear fashion that forces the reader to figure out things for themselves. The novel opens with events in 1959 that will have consequences in 2001. Packard populates Cherry Grove, a Long Island trailer park located two hours from Manhattan, with its share of eccentrics, curmudgeons, and recluses. These include Cherry, the transvestite who renamed the trailer park, previously owned by her parents, both devout Roman Catholics. Claude is a park employee and amateur photographer, whose dated journal entries provide a commentary on the events at hand. Sonny and his wife Rae appear as a happily married couple, living in a trailer with their precocious daughter Six. Paul, a black poet, and owner of the Spiritoso, a nearby restaurant, comes to grips with his terminal illness. He and his sullen wife Sloan end up dealing with the disease in a manner that disrupts the isolation and sexual identity of Claude.

The accumulated quirks may lead to the charge that the novel is precious or twee. Literary novels, like independent films, can be guilty of such a charge, at least when poor writing or lazy plotting reduce the terms “literary” and “independent” into meaningless buzzwords meant only to move units on a bookshelf. Book reviewing is a subjective art and subjectivity, like taste, is not the same for everyone. The same is true for Fall Asleep Forgetting. The novel represents the highest form of literary art, a deft melding of religion, sex, love, illness, and death into a compelling story. The only comparable work that comes to mind in this regard is Evelyn Waugh’s masterful Brideshead Revisited, a novel of genius despite its flaws, snobbishness, and mean-spirited attacks on the lower classes. Fall Asleep Forgetting balances emotional sentiment and the hard events of everyday life with a sumptuous sensuality. The balance parallels the best made Cosmopolitan, a cocktail dependent on the exact proportions of Vodka, Triple Sec, and cranberry juice.

The novel begins with a drowning in 1959 and quotidian events in Cherry Grove in 2001. In the beginning, events unfold in an almost haphazard manner, interspersed with Claude’s journal entries. Not until later on do the seemingly random events and the journal entries gel into a whole. When events finally interlock, fraying relationships collide, sexuality becomes confused, and strongly held religious beliefs create friction and fears. The story hurdles forward with a feverish velocity, swept together in a mélange of memory, dream, and revelation.

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Several days ago I finished reading Fall Asleep Forgetting by Georgeann Packard, a beautiful first novel about people living in a trailer park at the eastern tip of Long Island. The first part introduces the characters each one with a special view of life and what that means. Some characters were born different, some grew to be different. One of them is dying. The whole novel occurs across one summer, the dying person’s last summer. Each person sees his decline, each person handles his demise differently. A little girl, Six, sees school as torment and spends most of her energy getting away from the classroom. She is a free spirit, living easily in the sea, on the beach and in the woods surrounding the trailer park. One person is a male, but dresses as a woman and her lover is a gay man who once worked on Wall Street, but found a home at the trailer park. He falls to the flirtation of Six’s mother and the gay couple suddenly falls apart. Another character, possibly the main character, keeps a journal, written in italics, giving us an ongoing description of her feelings as the summer progresses. One couple, the woman very sad and living in a past event and the man a gifted chef run a restaurant close by the park. The emotional and physical involvement over the summer between the park guard who keeps the journal and the wife of the chef is an intense ongoing part of the novel. The dying man of this tale has planned each aspect of his death except for one – a very surprising end to his life.
I enjoyed this read very much, but found myself often floundering because this tale is one to be read in one sitting, which I didn’t do. Thus, I found myself reading again – and again…. The writing engaged me from the start and was lyrical, almost poetic at times. So, even though I ended up reading parts again I enjoyed each reading. An engaging novel showing a microcosm of civilization as it is.
Fall Asleep Forgetting was a prize to read, the only drawback is you can’t read it in bits and pieces, but more as a whole. I give this book four stars.

This book was a very good read even if in a few places it was a little confusing and the ending left me wondering what was going to happen to a couple of the characters....namely 'Six' and 'Cherry'...will Six ever understand what she's done, or for that matter will others...does Cherry get her love back...looking forward to Ms. Packard's next book...

Great summer read. Loved the characters... felt like a group I'd enjoy getting to know. If Oprah hasn't read this one... she's missing out! I was hooked from the beginning when Fada made her escape and it never disappointed.

Fall Asleep Forgetting is an absorbing novel and one I’ll find hard to forget. The loose-knit community of Cherry Grove trailer park, an odd group of misfits living on Long Island’s eastern tip, has welcomed me in. And everyone I’ve met has played their part.

The story starts with a fragment from before, from 1956 when a woman called Fada steps out on her own. But suddenly it’s May 2001, and the year has me wondering; the chapter headings all seem to lead to September…

Still, this tragedy is small. A stranger has died. Claude, who guards East Marion County Park has found the body. And nothing’s very important about it, except that maybe Paul is dying too, in a quieter, less unexpected way.

Paul cooks. He creates great beauty from food. He structures picnics like seven-course delights, and decorates his restaurant to keep the mind inside, not out enjoying the weather. Enjoy both, he might tell you, but focus on one.

Paul’s wife Sloan is the quiet one. You never quite know what she’s thinking, but you try to guess, and you learn her past through others, feel oddly sorry for that and for her future.

Cherry’s a fine one, making her own divided path, volatile but hugely kind. And Rae, who treads a different road, more conventionally unconventional you might say, is mother to Six, the small world’s wildest child.

Old Saugerties spouts rules and regs and seems to hate them all, while Six spouts questions and the Bible. But all the world’s instructions can’t control love and death. And few, it seems, can even prepare us for them.

Claude’s diary creates a picture as absorbing as her photographs. Sloan’s silence and sensuality build questions on sex and desire. Six’s queries demand thought. And even dying makes beauty in the September sun; beauty and pain, but focus on one.

A few months spent in their company makes these strangers become friends; a few hours reading by the warmth of a fire when summer seems unwilling to start; a few nights wondering at the secrets of the heart…

Small tragedies can be the biggest disasters to child or adult both, or a chance to grow. And sometimes it takes a community like Cherry Grove, nurtured and saved, to nurture and save. Not an easy book, not a rapid read, not a simple tale in sight; Fall Asleep Forgetting will have me drifting to the rhythms and beauty of its words, still trying to rationalize somehow all the things that happened there.

With thanks to the Permanent Press for giving me a bound galley for review.

This book was book was wonderful. Packard manages to sing this outrageously poetic song of life and death, community and affirmation without a trace of mawkishness or stereotype. It sounds crazy, but it's true.

Someone should call Oprah.

For her first book, Georgeann Packard has done a fabulous job! Her descriptions of the North Fork on Long Island make me feel as if I were there. The characters were so vibrant and real. I loved Fall Asleep Forgetting and suggest it be on everyone's "must read" list. I can't wait to read more from this author.

At page 3 or 4, I really couldn't stifle my 'oh dear...' at the stiffly flowery prose or the amount of "but no matter"s the author chose to close her sentences with. But surprise surprise, by page 11 or so i was hooked. Not exactly sure if the prose got better, i got used to it, or the characters got really compelling, really fast. This is Ms. Packard's strength, great characters she infuses with a lot of real emotion, like the truly sweet Cherry, a transvestite trailer park proprietress. "No matter" (har) that the main protagonist, a 'deep soul' loner photographer, is a dead giveaway for the author herself; her story is tinged with a melancholic beauty that carries the novel along where there are not exactly plot holes but a rambling lack of plot entirely. A flow is about all this lacked, in style or in story, otherwise it was a lovely read that caused my heart to remember a few things, if not to soar or break as might have been intended.

Beautiful, almost poetical writing about a small group of characters t hat by themselves may not seem too interesting, yet put them together and you have a story full of emotions, needs, wants, and great insight into the comedy and tragedy of what is it to be human.

I have mixed feelings about this one. All in all it was a pleasurable read, but there were a few tedious patches. The exquisite descriptions of the North Fork of Long Island were spot on and I took great pleasure in reading and rereading many of them. The cast of characters were also very human and likable, as well. My issues are more with the believability of some of those characters’ actions and with the ‘shocker’ finale. I’d like to see more from this writer, but I would be hesitant to give it a broad or wholesale recommendation for all readers.