Connie May Fowler - Before Women Had Wings (Ballantine Readers Circle)

BEFORE WOMEN HAD WINGS

by Connie May Fowler

Published by:

G. P. Putnam's Sons

200 Madison Avenue

New York, NY 10016.

Copyright 1996 by Connie May Fowler

BOOK JACKET

INFORMATION

PRAISE FOR

Connie May Fowler

"There is no denying the depth of Connie May Fowler's talent and the breadth of her imagination." --The New York Times Book Review

"Fowler makes us cry when her characters cry and laugh when they laugh. And that is true magic." --Atlanta Journal and Constitution

"Strong prose ... Rings real and authentic."--Los Angeles Times

"Like Faulkner, Fowler has a trusting and attuned ear. Her characters are right on the money."

--The Miami Herald

"Fowler's real gift is that she manages to present the ponderous problems her characters face with a style and grace that takes your breath away."

--St. Petersburg Times

"Fowler creates powerful intimacies ... bold, honest and intelligent."

--The Washington Post

Before Women Had Wings "made me shiver and ache. Connie May Fowler has done it again-- told a story about humanity, in many ways a mirror of anyone's childhood, if you subtract nearly all the good, multiply the humiliations, divide the loyalties, and add a double shot of bourbon and meanness.

"Stinging with tenderness, this is her best yet--a necessary story with an unstoppable emotional force."

--Amy Tan

"Fowler's deeply moving, triumphant third novel brilliantly conveys a child's bewilderment .... She sweeps the narrative along with plangent, lyrical prose ... and establishes herself as a writer of formidable talent."

--Publishers Weekly

"Connie May Fowler's voice is strong,

honest, painful, and redemptive. She writes about the dream of love and home with unswerving accuracy. This is her best work yet."

--Kaye Gibbons

My true name is Avocet. Avocet

Abigail Jackson. But because Mama couldn't find anyone who thought Avocet was a fine name for a child, she called me Bird. Which is okay by me. She named both her children after birds, her logic being that if we were named for something with wings then maybe we'd be able to fly above the shit in our lives.

So explains Bird Jackson, the narrator of Before Women Had Wings. She takes us from the shadows of an abandoned Florida citrus grove to the glare of a sprawling city and the transient world of The Travelers Motel. There she meets Miss Zora, a healer whose prayers over the bones of winged creatures are meant to guide their souls to heaven.

Starstruck by a dime-store picture of Jesus, Bird fancies herself "His girlfriend" and embarks upon a spiritual quest for salvation, even as the chaos and fear of her home life plunge her into a stony silence. In stark and honest language, she tells the tragic life of her father, a sweet-talking wanna-be country music star; tracks her older sister's perilous journey into womanhood; and witnesses as her mother--a bitter woman haunted by a violent past and an alcoholic present--makes a courageous and ultimately devastating decision. But most profound is Bird's own story--her struggle to sift through the ashes of her parents' lives and to make sense of a world where fear is more plentiful than hope, retribution more valued than love.

In Bird Jackson, Connie May Fowler has created a tender, vivid narrator through whose finely wrought voice we experience a fusion of myth and hard-core reality, dreams and daily certainties, and the journey of a young girl who forges a new idea of herself and, in the process, soars to meet the challenge of her name.

Connie May Fowler is the author of two previous novels, Sugar Cage and

River of Hidden Dreams. She lives in Florida with her husband, Mika Fowler.

Jacket design by Honi

Werner

Jacket photographs

Copyright 1996 by Mika Fowler Book design by Brian Mulligan

ALSO BY CONNIE MAY FOWLER

SUGAR CAGE

RIVER OF HIDDEN DREAMS

I would like to thank my husband, Mika, for helping me face my ghosts. I am indebted to my sister and brother--Deidre Hankins and Jimmy Friend--for allowing me to reopen old wounds and for so graciously sharing with me their childhood memories. I also must thank Joy Harris and Faith Sale--their ever-present strength inspires and sustains me. To my mother and father-- Lee and Henry, who passed away before I could ask the questions that mattered--I can only whisper, "I hope I got it right." To Laura Gaines, Carolyn Doty, Kim Seidman, and Col. James Friend, I offer heartfelt and enduring gratitude. And, of course, many thanks to Atticus for standing guard.

FOR FAITH

We will have the wings of eagles when the fallen angels fly.

--Billy Joe Shaver

BEFORE WOMEN HAD WINGS

Back in 1965, on a day so hot that God Almighty should have been writhing with sick-to-the-stomach guilt over driving His children out of the cool green of Eden, my daddy walked into our general store, held a revolver to his head, told my mama that he couldn't take any more and that because of her harsh ways and his many sins he was going to blow his brains out.

Seconds earlier, when it had been just Mama and I in that dusty old store, I'd been thinking about food. Sweets, to be exact. I used to suffer craving spells. Still do when I get to thinking about things. I don't know what spurred the want back then, a want for sugar that was so strong I would grind my teeth flat until my needs were met. Could it be that my deep yearning was caused by a sadness bred in the womb, a dark past we're helpless to undo or make right, a history we have no memory of once we're birthed into this world? Are there events so ancient and awful that our fresh lives are spoiled even before the cord is cut, so we keep craving?

These are questions for which I haven't a single answer. In fact, answers aren't part of my nature. Details are what I'm about--stacks and stacks of details--the bones of my family, calcified vessels, the marrow chock-full of wishes and regrets. In my mind I pick up the bones one by one--a leg bone, a hip, then a spine that looks like a witch's ladder. Before you know it, this skeleton made of memories is rattling me.

I was six years old, dressed in my yellow shorts set--it had white rickrack tacked around the neck--standing in front of the pine bins that were full to overflowing with sweets, trying my hand at whistling in an attempt to get my mama's attention, hoping that she would look up from the black ledger book and its long columns of numbers that evidently foretold our future, wanting her to smile and say it was okay to eat a honey bun --my favorite food in the entire world--betting that she would not snarl at me to get the hell away from the sweet bins because didn't I know it was almost lunchtime, when Daddy staggered in through the front screen door and, without saying hello, proceeded on with that revolver. Held it down by his side and let his arm dangle back and forth, as if the

gun were nothing more than a toy, something he might throw across the room.

My mama, whose name was Glory Marie, looked up from her work. Her face slid from distraction to annoyance, and I prayed that my guardian angel, who so far in my life had proven to be an elusive helper, would materialize in front of the counter with its clutter of jars filled with pigs' feet, beef jerky sticks, BC Powder packets, bug spray, pickled eggs. Prayerful words welled up inside me, whirled through my head: Please, angel, whisk me away. Take me to your house in the clouds, just for a little while, just for today.

I looked at the black muzzle of the gun and my daddy's freckled fingers wrapped around its handle like five pale, unsteady snakes. Come on, angel, come on.

Mama said something under her breath--probably a curse word, she knew a lot of those. Then she picked up her perfectly sharpened pencil, pointed it at Daddy, dartlike, and said, "Billy, put down the gun. You're scaring the children," although he could not have been scaring my big sister, Phoebe, because Mama had sent her down the road to Mrs. Bryson's to deliver the lard and flour she'd ordered.