The Gravity of Birds is about a painting, a triptych: the people painted in it and the people trying to find the missing two outer panels.
Thomas Bayber is a famous artist who hasn’t painted for years. Suddenly he calls upon his friend, Professor Dennis Finch, to track down the two missing side panels of a painting Thomas still has in his possession. Finch, whose lifework has been the catalogue resumé of Bayber’s work has every incentive to do as he is bid, even though he knows he is being manipulated. He even carries on when Bayber saddles him with the insufferable but talented Stephen Jameson as an expert in authenticating art.
It becomes apparent that finding the paintings means finding the sisters portrayed in them, Alice and Natalie Kessler. But they have done a wonderful job of disappearing. Disappearing from Thomas, Finch and Stephen that is, not from the reader. Alice’s story is told alongside the hunt for the triptych. Natalie’s is a mystery that gradually unfolds.
With five principal characters to juggle the author has the audacity to add another half way through the book. It’s no wonder her editors quailed. But Guzeman can handle her characters, gradually refining their motivations, revealing their misconceptions and disclosing secrets that have been kept over a lifetime.
And Guzeman’s writing is exquisite:
‘The paint on the door was a tired brown fading to gray, cracked and buckled as an alligator hide, chunky flakes of it falling to the ground as she brushed against it.’
‘A wave of grief washed over Finch, and he was overcome with her absence. Eleven months was not long – he still found the occasional sympathy card in his mailbox – but time had expanded and slowed. His days swelled with the monotony of hours, piling up in colossal heaps before and after him, the used the same as the new.’
‘The used the same as the new.’ What an amazing description of the absence after death.
This is writing to make you pause and savor what has been said.
Guzeman puts the frailty of the human condition front and center. Her characters are bereaved, they have migraines, they suffer from car sickness and are afraid of flying. One has crippling arthritis. One has a stroke. Another bears a war wound. I cannot think of any other book where illness and disability is something that every main character experiences, not just the token individual. Yet this book is not morbid. It’s not preachy, either. In some parts it’s extremely funny.
Misconception, misunderstanding and misuse are the foundation of the mystery that drives the plot. What is the resolution? Well, it takes a while to realize there is a mystery beyond the missing parts of a painting – longer to get to a resolution. But it’s worth every beautifully crafted word.
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