Maria Mutch

‘’Snow falls on the shoulders of people passing, it lands on the pavement and vanishes, more lands and sticks. She watches the crystals clump, tumble, and it is twilight and the lights of the restaurants and shops turn amber. She feels a snowflake land in her eye, no nictitating membrane to sweep the cernea. The insides of buildings still fascinate her.’’

In New York, nothing is as it seems. In Manhattan, in Brooklyn, in Harlem. In the heart of Central Park. People live their lives in the shade of the skyscrapers and the lights of Broadway. Nobody notices anything. Nobody notices birds behaving like human beings. Nobody notices people defying the human laws and obeying to their avian instincts. Folklore, myths and nature in a beautiful, eerie collection by Maria Munch.

Munch is inspired by taxidermy and the theme of metamorphosis and writes about womanhood and transformation from within. The avian world represents mystery, knowledge, wisdom and freedom. The characters in the stories struggle to change, to find the necessary knowledge and gain their freedom. With references to Homer, Ovid and Greek Mythology, the writer creates her own Odysseus, Persephone, Orpheus, Aeneas and gives birth to stories of mysticism, lyrical sensuality, raw emotion. Enriched with atmospheric black-and-white photos, this collection is a marvelous example of the powerful and haunting mixture of Literary Fiction and Magical Realism.

These are the six stories that have stayed with me:

The Peregrine at the End of the World: A story about window-cleaners and an attractive peregrine that becomes a woman. Modern, haunting and poignant.

Appetites: A modern fable inspired by Red Riding Hood.

The Bastard Notebook: The haunting, violent tale of Bluebeard told through mystical, sensual writing. Marvelous!

Sea Of Love: A powerful exploration of the relationship and the estrangement of a married couple through metaphors of water and storm.

Captivity: The eerie musings of a woman in an asylum.

Messages From the Snow: Sasha’s body becomes a living ‘’notebook’’ for messages written by troubled souls that live inside her. Literally. Even though this may sound like a scene from the perfect film ‘’The Exorcist’’, this story is a heartfelt account of a relationship between a troubled daughter and a mother that struggles with dementia. The highlight of the collection, set during a rather heavy winter in New York.

When We Were Birds hides a dark surprise in each story. This strangely fascinating collection shows that Magical Realism and Literary Fiction are the genres that remind us why Literature makes our life beautiful and weird.

‘’When the water came, it swallowed me and then I swallowed it. Conversion was a struggle between me and the person I had mistaken for me. Bubbles rushed, sparkling, to the surface. They hustled away limitations and boundaries, and at times I seemed to be the ocean.’’

My reviews can also be found on https://theopinionatedreaderblog.wordpress.com… (mer)

Maria Mutch has a fascinating story to tell. Her first son, Gabriel, was born with Downs Syndrome. At the age of two he begins to exhibit behavior which is not normally associated with Downs Syndrome. It took a few years to discover that his nocturnal shrieking, wakefulness and repetitive actions were signs of autism. Almost every night, Maria and her husband, referred to as R, are awakened by unusual sounds or just as serious, complete silence from Gabriel's room. On those nights, Maria took Gabriel out and discovered a world in which Gabriel could relate, sooth him and for awhile find a door to a comforting place where other night owls lived and flourished, Jazz Clubs.
Ms. Mutch juxtapositions her feelings of loneliness with excerpts from Admiral Byrd's memoir Alone. Frankly, I thought these excerpts, references to Camus' The Myth of Sisyphus and her skipping and hopping about through episodes in Gabriel's childhood rather disturbing. I do however admire, the author's loving care of Gabriel and her midnight journey's with him. For me, with a little less reference to Byrd this memoir would have been more emotionally effective.… (mer)

Maria Mutch combines the the story of Antarctic explorer Richard Byrd with that of her much-loved son Gabriel in this moving, poetic memoir.

Gabriel was born with Down Syndrome. He developed language skills as other children do until he was a toddler, but then a series of seizures damaged his brain and took his words away. Gabriel is a teenager now, and it seems like he leads a pretty good life, despite his limitations and dual diagnosis of Down Syndrome and autism. He shows signs of frustration at his inability to speak, but he can communicate through sounds and gestures, such as tossing his toast across the kitchen when his mother fails to understand what he wants for breakfast. Jazz reaches him as nothing else can, and he's a favorite at the clubs goes to with his parents.

For a few years Gabriel was not able to sleep well, and through the long, lonely nights his mother would stay up with him. During this sleep-deprived period she found solace in Alone , Admiral Richard Byrd's memoir of his solitary stay at an isolated weather station. She retells Byrd's narrative as a "counterpoint" (the book flap's word) to her son's. As a reader, I found her connection of the two stories tenuous at best, and as I was more interested in Gabriel than I was in Byrd, I found myself skimming the chapters on Antarctica.

This book is not a page-turner; its pleasures derive from the author's writing skill rather than from plot, action, medical detail or character development. As Mutch writes near the end of the book, it is a "love story", a love story that involves Gabriel, his parents and brother, and the community of which the they are a part.… (mer)