If you don’t know how much mad love I have for Crystal Wilkinson’s writing, you’re going to hear all about it in this review of The Birds of Opulence, newly released in March 2016. The story explores life in small town Opulence, focalizing on the Goode-Brown family. The four generations of women, led by the spirited and strong-minded Minnie Mae.
The novel explores themes of womanhood, coming of age, mental illness, duty, and life. Wilkinson introduces the characters, while planting the seed of this town and the culture that resides there. The atmosphere Wilkinson cultivates will seize you and bring you along for the ride right from page one. This is what is so incredible about her storytelling aptitude. I was mentioning this to Andi from Estella’s Revenge and she said that she loved when that happened because a lot of authors don’t seem to know how to do that. I gave that a long hard thought and I have to agree with her. It isn’t easy to create an atmosphere and to maintain it throughout the story.
The descriptions of Opulence’s beautiful countryside, from the different women and the tests of life they go through, to the food, and the memories they recount, the story gives off deep meaning on many levels in very few pages. As you may have guessed the birds are the principal women in the book. We read about the the older women in the story and then we go full circle to the stories of their daughters. Another interesting aspect is that Wilkinson has brought in characters from her previous connected short story collection called Water Street, which I reviewed and also loved. So we have the chance to see Mona and Yolanda in The Birds of Opulence growing up and becoming young women, whereas in Water Street we only see them as women and one episode which is a memory is reality in The Birds of Opulence. We also understand their how they become friends and their connection to each other which is not explained in detail in Water Street.
“Boy give you less to worry about.” (The Birds of Opulence, p. 5) is the phrase that rings like an alarm through the entire book, uttered by Minnie Mae. Women and men aren’t equal in life’s challenges as much as we would like that to be the contrary and we witness the many injustices that happen to the different female characters. However tragic these stories, there is still a silver lining despite its bittersweetness and an entryway to more future stories about the people of Opulence.
I encourage you all to check out Crystal Wilkinson’s other short story collections Blackberries, Blackberries and Water Street. Her sensitive realistic writing style will suck you in and you won’t be able to put the book down. The Birds of Opulence is a perfect puzzle piece to her previous work and I look forward to seeing what she writes next. Who knows maybe we’ll get to learn even more about Mona….
My copy: The Birds of Opulence – hardcover, 199 pages
Rating: ****
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Great review! I think you enjoyed this offering a bit more than I did; although I’m still a fan of the author. In fact, she accepted an invitation to meet with our book club, so we’re in the planning stages of confirming a date. I’ll be sure to tell her about your blog/post if you haven’t done so already.
I liked it because I read Water Street and it has some of the same characters. I like that because you learn more about them in doses and that leaves some mystery. If you haven’t read Water Street then it might not have the same effect. however I find her writing style infectious. I love the way she writes that ambience. She doesn’t need 500 pages to do it either.
I’m glad this one lived up to your expectations. You have me super excited about her!
I liked it and I feel like she’s going to be exploring more of the characters from Water Street. I liked Water Street a lot and there are a lot of characters in there. She focuses mostly on Mona, Yolanda, and Keke but I feel like there is more to come that’s why this one was so short. She’s building a world.
Thank you so very much!!! I hope you know how much this review means to me considering some people do not get what I was trying to do with this book. But you did!! Thank you!
Well thank you for rocking my reading world and giving me encouragement to do some creative writing of my own. I hope more people check your work out because it really is beautiful. 🙂
Hi Didi – Enticing review. Do you think that someone who has yet to read Crystal Wilkinson’s work could begin with The Birds of Opulence?
Of course. Just know that three of the characters in The Birds of Opulence are also found in Water Street, which is also excellent. 🙂