Winter Birds (1994) by Jim Grimsley

 1,001 Novels: A Library of America

Winter Birds (1994)

by Jim Grimsley

Grifton, North Carolina

North Carolina: 2/20

   Winter Birds is another incredibly dark family drama written from the perspective of the son an extremely dysfunctional family living off a Freeway in rural North Carolina.  Winter Birds is so dark that it was originally published in German translation after no American publisher would take it.  After the German language translation, Grimsley did find a publisher but it was never a hit- Publisher's Weekly straight up panned it, for many of the same reasons I didn't enjoy reading the book.

 Grimsley is primarily a play-wright, and Winter Birds reads like a play- the entire book takes place inside the family home and is told in the second person.   Basically, the entire book is an extended scene of domestic violence, with multiple- multiple lengthy scenes that are basically this guy's one-armed father chasing his poor mom around the house with a knife.  Dad commits all types of atrocities including stabbing the family dog to death while screaming "this is you" to his wife, who is hiding in the woods.  In the culminating scene/waking nightmare, Dad forces the narrator to have sex with his own mother.  Horrific!