Rebuilding after a bereavement, a failure, an injury begins with small things: a song, an encounter, the feathers of a bird. Without warning, we swim in the unknown, oscillating between vertigo and hope. That’s what up-and-coming opera singer Dawn Woodward goes through when a disastrous performance knocks her off her pedestal. Forced to rest, she was given the task of teaching arias to the Rossignols, a troupe of amateur whistlers. At first outraged, the young diva will gradually open up to a new vision of love and music… A reversal that is no stranger to a certain Tariq, and his endearing parrot, Tulipe.
In the slowness of welcome and rebirth, the Canadian writer Nina Berkhout knits a tribute to benevolence, that which we grant ourselves, and to the bonds which can be created there. Beneath its honeyed airs, Hope is that feathered thing offers hope and redemption — scarce resources in these dark times — on a silver platter. A perfect summer read.
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