Sixteen-year-old Gradle Bird has lived her entire life with her Grandpa, Leonard, at a seedy motel and truck stop off Georgia’s I-16. But when Leonard moves her to a crumbling old house rumored to be haunted by the ghost of Ms. Annalee Spivey, Gradle is plunged into a lush, magical world much stranger and more dangerous than from the one she came.Here she meets Sonny Joe Stitch, a Siamese … Joe Stitch, a Siamese Fighting Fish connoisseur overdosed on testosterone, a crippled, Bible-thumping hobo named Ceif “Tadpole” Walker, and the only true friend she will ever know, a schizophrenic genius, music-man, and professional dumpster-diver, D-5 Delvis Miles.
As Gradle falls deeper into Delvis’s imaginary and fantastical world, unsettling dangers lurk, and when surfaced Gradle discovers unforeseen depths in herself and the people she loves the most.
Gradle Bird is an unusual tale of self-discovery and redemption that explores the infirmities of fatherly love, the complexities of human cruelty, and the consequences of guilt, proving they are possible to overcome no matter how dark and horrible the cause.
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There’s a certain kind of magic woven into this crazy-good book beyond the story, beyond its idiosyncratic characters, even beyond the marvelous artwork uniquely stamped into the pages–all of which I loved. I normally devour a book that I’m smitten with but GRADLE BIRD was like one of those wonderfully weird dreams that you’re not ready to wake from. I read it in small bits so I could fully immerse myself in the mesmerizing world of a quirky teen who tromps around in her dead mother’s shiny green dress, her ornery grandfather Leonard–who secretly dances with the ghost of his long-gone beloved, a wanna-be crippled preacher Ceif and his usually-drunk buddy Sonny Jo and, finally, brilliant but misunderstood schizophrenic singer-songwriter D-5 Delvis Miles The Lone Singer.
I’ve never specifically sought out “Southern Gothic” and frankly couldn’t begin to describe the of rules the genre. What I do know is that GRADLE BIRD seduces the reader into overlapping worlds of lush, southern countryside and the dried dead petals of a forgotten garden. Sasser manages to accomplish what few debut authors do, weave a fresh story with a cast of extraordinary yet believable characters that make you care what happens to them, even the ones you don’t like all that much. Beyond that, the writing is pure gold, and I’m already fan-girling this author and can’t wait her next book. GRADLE BIRD took my breath away, then blew it back to me smelling like carrots and moonvine.
Just when I thought I had a handle on the meaning of southern fiction, on its deep-rooted history, its significance of family and sense of community, J.C. Sasser comes blazing in with both barrels to turn all notions of southern fiction on its ear. The characters in Gradle Bird conduct themselves with similar surprise—they don’t walk through a door, they bust through it; they don’t take a drag on a cigarette, they rip it.
Sixteen-year-old Gradle Bird doesn’t know her backstory. She lives in a truck-stop motel with her grandfather, Leonard, until they move to a dilapidated, haunted house in small town Georgia. All she wants is for Leonard to look her in the eye and tell her about her mother. Leonard won’t, and Gradle doesn’t know why. But Leonard is haunted by his own backstory, which unfurls in the attic in the arms of a half-dead dancing ghost. Caught in his own history, Leonard doesn’t pay attention, when two local ruffians named Sonny Joe and Creif ride up in a truck and whisk Gradle to a junkyard, where the wheels of the story are set in motion at the house of a sixty-year-old Kung-Fu kicking, guitar playing, country music singing, dumpster-diving orphan named Delvis, who is one of the more endearing eccentrics to ever grace a novel. Sonny Joe and Creif intend to impress Gradle by making mischief at Delvis’s expense, but things go wrong and result in Gradle and Delvis’s enduring friendship, which, the reader discovers, has its own uncanny ties that bind. This is a southern story that hallucinates; a rollicking, free-association, stream of consciousness joy ride defying description for all its air-tight perfect sense.
I absolutely loved this story. I won’t cheapen Sasser’s one of a kind voice by saying it’s quirky, rather, it is refreshingly and unapologetically right on. This is an author who won’t insult the reader by bowing to the temptation of explaining anything that could be interpreted as the oddities of the South. A main character sits at a table in a wife beater. There’s nothing campy happening here, it is simply the story’s state of affairs, best described by Delvis, who ain’t bragging, he’s just giving the reader the facts.
Read Gradle Bird and expand your horizons. Start at page one and strap yourself in. Do what I did and savor each uniquely spun line. Finish the book, and if you get your head back, run tell all your friends.
I don’t think I have the words to do this beautiful book justice. It was absolutely magical, quite weird, and completely poetic in all the right places. Rarely have I fallen in love with characters so deeply and so quickly– Gradle Bird captured my heart from the first pages. I could have easily read it in one sitting but took my time instead, willing it to go on forever. I was entranced the entire time and hugged the book close to my chest when I was finished. A true and unique treasure, and one I won’t forget.