First published 2020
A brilliant young woman first hears birdsong as a child and cannot forget it. The melodies and calls consume her thoughts. She grows up to become a neuroscientist, driven by one singular mission: to crack the code of how birds communicate. She dedicates her career to this pursuit, studying wing beats and warbles with scientific precision. But her fixation grows beyond professional interest into something darker. The deeper she ventures into avian communication, the more it changes her. Mukherjee traces how language systems can captivate the human mind and what happens when that captivation becomes complete. The novel examines the price of surrendering to obsession and the isolation that follows. Lu Chao's detailed paintings accompany the text, exploring themes of flight and gravity.
Genres: fiction, science-fiction, literary-fiction, neuroscience, 21st-century, academic
Vibes: dark, emotional, thought-provoking
Tropes: fixation, isolation, obsession
Paperback · Sylph Editions
Content warnings: mental-illness