The Bird Saviors

by William J. Cobb

Overview

When a dust storm engulfs her Colorado town and pink snow blankets the streets, a heartbreaking decision faces Ruby Cole, a girl who counts birds: She must abandon her baby or give in to her father, whom she nicknames Lord God, and marry a man more than twice her age who already has two wives. She chooses to run, which sets in motion an interlocking series of actions and reactions, upending the lives of an equestrian police officer, pawnshop riffraff, a disabled war vet, Nuisance Animal destroyers, and a grieving ornithologist—a field biologist studies the decline of bird populations. All the while, a growing criminal enterprise moves from cattle rustling to kidnapping to hijacking fuel tankers and murder as events spin out of control,.

Set in a time of economic turmoil, virus fears, climate change, fundamentalist cults and illegal immigrant hardship, The Bird Saviors is a visionary story of defiance, anger, and compassion, in which a young woman ultimately struggles to free herself from her domineering father, to raise her daughter in the chaos of the New West, and to become something greater herself.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781609530709
Publisher:	Unbridled Books
Publication date:	06/12/2012
Pages:	320
Product dimensions:	6.62(w) x 9.02(h) x 1.03(d)

About the Author

William J. Cobb is the author a book of stories, The White Tattoo, and two previous novels, The Fire Eaters and, more recently, the critically acclaimed Goodnight, Texas. His short fiction has appeared in The New Yorker and in many other magazines. He has received numerous awards, including a National Endowment for the Arts grant, a Dobie-Paisano Fellowship, the Sandstone Prize, and an AWP Award for the Novel.

Editorial Reviews

“Bill Cobb's The Bird Saviors is a stark modern-day Old Testament story in which the evil that men do is barely balanced by the good that a few manage to achieve. It's a gritty harrowing story set in a dust-blown Colorado town that seems filled with vivid characters. Cobb's expert story-telling compels us forward scene by scene to a final satisfying redemption.” –Kent Haruf, author of Plainsong


"A novel told with an unexpected and appealing warmth; the characters in The Bird Saviors become increasingly memorable, page by page, and the story pulled me in without hullabaloo or fuss— this is good, confident storytelling." —Aimee Bender

“Weaving a biblical motif with social, political, economic, and environmental undertones, he does a yeoman’s job of bringing together complex themes in a touching and memorable tale that readers won’t soon forget. It’s Cobb’s prose, in particular, that breathes life into this tumultuous terrain, his every sentence dulcet in the discordance. . .To say The Bird Saviors is “amazing” is also to shortchange Cobb. For his is a timeless story of love and redemption, a classic tale of good vs. evil, and a can’t-miss page-turner that leaves readers wanting more.” –Foreword Magazine

From the Publisher

In a grim, dystopian American West, bird populations, which are being blamed for a virulent avian flu epidemic, are being shot to extinction. Oil shortages play havoc with the economy, stretching the divide between rich and poor. The weather is bizarre, with persistent drought and dust storms. Scariest of all: these events don't seem to be occurring that far in the future. On the fringes of Pueblo, CO, characters' lives and misadventures intersect. These characters include Ruby, an unwed teen mother whose fundamentalist Mormon father considers selling her off to a polygamist pawn shop owner; a handsome but shady Native American living off the grid; a city traffic cop who patrols on horseback, plus a few assorted criminals. Ruby's interest in birds leads her to a job as research assistant to an ornithologist who's mourning the deaths of his own wife and child to the flu. VERDICT A powerful but disturbing read. Beyond building a sense of dread and panic, Cobb (Goodnight, Texas) gets inside the heads of people down on their luck in a disintegrating world.—Reba Leiding, James Madison Univ. Libs., Harrisonburg, VA

Library Journal