Lone Star Book Blog Tour: A Wall of Bright Dead Feathers by Babette Fraser Hale (Review and Giveaway)

A WALL OF BRIGHT DEAD FEATHERS
By Babette Fraser Hale
Pages: 216
Pub Date: March 1st, 2021
Categories: Short Stories / Literary Fiction

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Most are newcomers to the scenic, rolling countryside of central Texas whose charms they romanticize, even as the troubles they hoped to leave behind persist. Twelve stories highlight “the book’s recurring theme of desire—for freedom, for clarity, for autonomy, and for personal fulfillment…When women are alone, unencumbered and unbeholden to anyone, they engage in intense internal reflection and show reverence for nature—and during these scenes, Hale’s language is luminescent” (Kirkus Reviews). 
 
 
PRAISE FOR A WALL OF BRIGHT DEAD FEATHERS: 
“Hale shows a great respect for her characters and for the difficulty of their deceptively ordered existence, as well as for the problems they suffer because so much cannot be spoken.” — Francine Prose, on “Silences” 
 

“A vivid set of tales about connection to other people and to the natural world…Hale’s lovely prose shows a keen eye for detail…”  

Kirkus Reviews 

 

Purchase Links: 

Winedale Publishing Brazos Bookstore | Amazon 

 


“We never see the end of something when we’re in the middle of it.”

A Wall of Bright Dead Flowers by Babette Fraser Hale is a literary collection of seemingly unconnected short stories, giving readers the opportunity to read them out of sequence if they choose, without affecting the overall experience. With that said, however, the first few stories provide a pattern of drought, or drouth, in the rustic and often pastoral Texas landscape between Austin and Houston. While these first stories have a common theme of a lack of moisture in a modern context, A Skeptical Parrot, which falls almost in the middle and mostly set during the Civil War, serves as a sort of Volta, turning that motif away from such dry winds and cracked earth, perhaps not necessarily with cooling, life-giving rain but drenched in the blood of the fallen. With this transitional story occurring decades earlier before settling back into the relative present, the symbolism of transforming from arid to arable, both of which are uniquely ripe for living and dying, is interesting in its backward-to-forward flow, in terms of time frame.

As with many short story collections, the narratives start in medias res and stay there, jumping into the telling of ordinary lives without fanfare and mostly without much closure when each story simply freezes in a painted landscape that captures the imagination. With mostly no character arcs or structured plot progression, each short story is a glimpse into mundane and routine lives and relationships filled with choices and natural transformation, punctuated by moments of truth, loss, vulnerability, and life-changing junctures.

“People don’t like to make transformative changes in their lives. They don’t like to look ahead. Because if they do peer into the diminishing tunnel of the future, what they will see most clearly is the impassable wall of their own death at the end.”

Hale’s writing is extremely lyrical yet still ordinary and consumable, creating a flood of sing-song narration ensconced in basic prose, melding and undulating throughout. The stories can be enjoyed for their literal, surface interpretation or based on their symbolism and poetical undertones about both the miniature and monumental stages of life.

The pacing is naturally somewhat fast, with each story building against the backdrop of emotions that are either suppressed or unleashed, or both, allowing the reader to savor and absorb the scant characterization and story lines. If you are looking for quick stories that have substance and deeper meaning floating just beneath the surface, then A Wall of Bright Dead Feathers will definitely fit the bill. Each story can be appreciated a bit more if, upon completion, you give that visceral literary reaction a few minutes to bloom, mature, and filter through the cognitive process. Yes, they are all that thought provoking in their simplicity and depth.

“Surely the easiest, simplest thing is to love the person you spend your life with.”

Enter the giveaway below on or before April 2, 2021, for a chance to win some fabulous prizes.


I received a free copy of this book from Lone Star Book Blog Tours in exchange for my honest review.


Babette Fraser Hale’s fiction has won the Meyerson Award from Southwest Review, a creative artist award from the Cultural Arts Council of Houston, and been recognized among the “other distinguished stories” in Best American Short Stories, 2015. Her story “Drouth” is part of the New York Public Library’s digital collection. Her nonfiction has appeared in Texas Monthly, Houston City, and the Houston Chronicle. She writes a personal essay column for the Fayette County Record.  
 

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GIVEAWAY! GIVEAWAY! GIVEAWAY! 

TWO WINNERS each receive a signed bookplate

+ $20 Brazos Bookstore Gift Card to buy the book 

 (US only. Ends midnight, CDT, 4/2/2021.) 

 

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Click to visit the Lone Star Literary Life Tour Page
for direct links to each post on this tour, updated daily,
or visit the blogs directly:

3/23/21 Author Video The Page Unbound
3/23/21 Excerpt Texas Book Lover
3/24/21 Review Book Bustle
3/24/21 BONUS Promo LSBBT Blog
3/25/21 Review Rainy Days with Amanda
3/25/21 Author Interview Chapter Break Book Blog
3/26/21 Review Missus Gonzo
3/27/21 Excerpt All the Ups and Downs
3/28/21 Guest Post The Clueless Gent
3/29/21 Review StoreyBook Reviews
3/29/21 Author Interview Hall Ways Blog
3/30/21 Review Reading by Moonlight
3/31/21 Review Bibliotica
3/31/21 Guest Post Librariel Book Adventures
4/1/21 Review It’s Not All Gravy
4/1/21 Review Forgotten Winds
 
 

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2 Replies to “Lone Star Book Blog Tour: A Wall of Bright Dead Feathers by Babette Fraser Hale (Review and Giveaway)”

  1. What a terrific review, Ruthie. I agree about pausing at the end of each story to savor all that it was in terms of message and beauty of the writing.