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Kentucky Voices
The Man Who Loved Birds: A Novel
Having taken great risks--to immigrate to America, to take monastic vows--Bengali physician Meena Chatterjee and Brother Flavian are each seeking safety and security when they encounter Johnny Faye, a Vietnam vet, free spirit, and expert marijuana farmer. Amid the fields and forests of a Trappist monastery, Johnny Faye patiently cultivates Meena's and Flavian's capacity for faith, transforming all they thought they knew about duty and desire. In turn they offer him an experience of civilization ot
328 pages, Hardcover
First published February 5, 2016
About the author
Fenton Johnson
32 books44 followersFenton Johnson is an award-winning author who teaches in the creative writing programs at the University of Arizona and Spalding University.
Librarian note: There is more than one author in the Goodreads database with this name.
Fenton^Johnson
Librarian note: There is more than one author in the Goodreads database with this name.
Fenton^Johnson
Ratings & Reviews
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Displaying 1 - 12 of 12 reviews
January 22, 2016
I was totally surprised by the power of this brand new novel! Fenton Johnson's characters are distinct, each one memorable for both strengths and sins, and his plot twists with surprises that weave a shocking but too true story. I delayed finishing it for a few days to avoid the inevitable climax.
The recent history of pot growing in KY is central once again - but this time within fiction that stars Vietnam vet Johnny Faye whose mysterious appeal seduces a monk, an Indian doctor, and even the birds. He offers a kind of salvation, a spiritual/sexual awakening to both Flavian and Meena, even as he becomes the sacrifice. Law, justice, theology, love, nature, literacy, child abuse, rural medical care, Pakistani history - what a complex multitude of subjects comprise "The Man Who Loved Birds."
The recent history of pot growing in KY is central once again - but this time within fiction that stars Vietnam vet Johnny Faye whose mysterious appeal seduces a monk, an Indian doctor, and even the birds. He offers a kind of salvation, a spiritual/sexual awakening to both Flavian and Meena, even as he becomes the sacrifice. Law, justice, theology, love, nature, literacy, child abuse, rural medical care, Pakistani history - what a complex multitude of subjects comprise "The Man Who Loved Birds."
July 9, 2021
I really liked this book until close to the end. What was a beautiful story had to introduce homosexuality into the mix. Therefore the 4 star rating I would have given, fell a notch. I skipped a couple pages at that point. But it did kind of sour me on the rest of the book.
Library book so I didn’t pass it on or have to destroy it.
Library book so I didn’t pass it on or have to destroy it.
February 19, 2016
Wonderful book. I completely enjoyed it.
December 15, 2021
I really liked this book. It is a bit hard to find. I don't know why but it was not in our local Orange County Library system. So, requested that they add it. This book is written by Fenton Johnson and award winning fiction and literary non-fiction writer. The plot revolves around three captivating characters; A female medical Dr. from Bengali, a Trappist monk and a charismatic free spirited pot farmer. All three meet against the back drop of a daydream landscape of forest, creeks that teem with wildlife and everyday magic. It is a haunting fable that explores the eternal conflicts between free will and destiny, politics and nature, the power of the law and the power of love. If you can find it it is so worth reading and I think it would make a great read for your book club.
June 2, 2019
Very disappointing- has a wonderful cast of characters and an easy writing style but the story falls flat. The end has gratuitous and sensationalized events and I was unimpressed.
June 1, 2016
Fenton Johnson's The Man Who Loved Birds is an enjoyable, delicate novel with rich, complex characters and lush, succinct descriptions of the landscape of his homeland, rural Kentucky. The story is simple in an enjoyable way which allows the writing to unfold a world at the intersection of a venerable yet rusty religious institution and the realities of contemporary rural poverty. The writing provides surprising depth to each character primarily through illustrative dialog. Johnson shows us, doesn't tell us.
I also really enjoyed the mastery of language used in The Man Who Loved Birds. I'm not much of a novel reader: I find most novels tedious, verbose, and exercises in ego. Perhaps if I had read more novels, I would find that the style in which Johnson "writes outside the lines" of proper grammar is common-place. However, I doubt this is true. The Man Who Loved Birds is an exercise in clarity of communication precisely by using effective moderate deviance from standard writing structure. It's not a pile of abstraction. The Man Who Loved Birds holds to tradition: It has chapters, paragraphs and punctuation. It's the more subtle aspects that Johnson crafts, to great effect.
Great for a weekend away, The Man Who Loved Birds is refreshing, insightful, and worthy of your time.
I also really enjoyed the mastery of language used in The Man Who Loved Birds. I'm not much of a novel reader: I find most novels tedious, verbose, and exercises in ego. Perhaps if I had read more novels, I would find that the style in which Johnson "writes outside the lines" of proper grammar is common-place. However, I doubt this is true. The Man Who Loved Birds is an exercise in clarity of communication precisely by using effective moderate deviance from standard writing structure. It's not a pile of abstraction. The Man Who Loved Birds holds to tradition: It has chapters, paragraphs and punctuation. It's the more subtle aspects that Johnson crafts, to great effect.
Great for a weekend away, The Man Who Loved Birds is refreshing, insightful, and worthy of your time.
August 23, 2016
With elegance and beautiful prose, Johnson brings together three people in an unlikely bond; an Indian doctor, a doubtful monk and a nature-loving illiterate pot grower. The story's set in a small Kentucky town with assorted other characters; a creative but abused young boy, his creepy sheriff father and the boy's earnest pie-making mother, plus an arrogant attorney and his craven assistant.
Inspired by a true story in 1971, Johnson brings a personal perspective to their inter-related lives and a gradually developing tragedy. POV shifts from Meena (the doctor) to Brother Flavian (the monk) and their growing relationship with Johnny Faye, who's fully connected to nature and life in a way the other two long for, despite their scholarly or theological backgrounds.
Descriptions of nature, animals and the setting are quite beautiful, and questions of spirituality are told with clear dual symbols of Christianity and Hinduism. What is crime? What is law, justice in the natural world?
The ending is a bit truncated, but this is not a thriller; more of a philosophical query.
Inspired by a true story in 1971, Johnson brings a personal perspective to their inter-related lives and a gradually developing tragedy. POV shifts from Meena (the doctor) to Brother Flavian (the monk) and their growing relationship with Johnny Faye, who's fully connected to nature and life in a way the other two long for, despite their scholarly or theological backgrounds.
Descriptions of nature, animals and the setting are quite beautiful, and questions of spirituality are told with clear dual symbols of Christianity and Hinduism. What is crime? What is law, justice in the natural world?
The ending is a bit truncated, but this is not a thriller; more of a philosophical query.
March 13, 2016
I loved this novel. This isn't a story with a lot of plot and the pacing felt a little uneven at times (the novel wrapped up rather abruptly, I thought) but the journey with these complex and interesting characters in 1980's rural Kentucky is one that will stick with me for a while. I am a fan Johnson's writing (I loved Scissors, Paper, Rock) and as with his other novels there were some lines of text that were so beautiful and so insightful that I had to just stop reading and reflect for a while. For me, his strength as a writer comes from his ability to get to the heart of the most bittersweet aspects of life (love and loss, life and death) and I always feel so much when I read one of his novels.
May 16, 2016
This is a realm far outside my experience and I enjoyed reading about it. Johnson has created some interesting characters (and some who are a little stock) but the basic scenario is intriguing and well played out. Johnson does have a nice writing style although this likely would have benefited from a little more editing to propel the plot. Thanks to edelweiss for the ARC. Recommend if you are interested in rural Kentucky, life during the Reagan years, or just a good read.
August 31, 2016
The main characters are a doctor from India, a Trappist monk, and a free spirited Viet Nam vet who grows pot. Their lives intersect and are changes forever. Parts of the story are so reminiscent of The Cornbread Mafia. It is a fictionalized version of that true story. I have much to ponder as a result of the book. How evil is growing pot when selling the plant is the only way to keep food on the table? Folk medicine used a pot as a medication to relieve asthma as well as other illnesses.
June 29, 2016
A beautiful and unique story. So refreshing to read something truly new in content.
Read
November 28, 2017The Man Who Loved Birds is a wonderful work of art. From the very first line of this book I was hooked. The characters were immediately engrossing and fascinating, but it wasn’t until I began to get deeper, that I realized how ambitious the scope of this novel is. There is a heavy amount of content to this novel, somehow touching on religion, fidelity, law and order, corruption and many other weighty and consequential themes. But amongst these issues it blends in an engaging and enthralling narrative, that was artfully crafted, well-paced, and enjoyably slow with its full reveal.
The language was beautiful, and it managed in it this kind of reverence for God and life, helping, I think, to blur those emotions and responses which showcases that while we might use different terms and books and ideals to grapple with these issues, it comes from a similar place of awe, a unifying awe.
In a way, this novel feels like a threat to true criminals. To those people that embrace their greed in the shadows. Or maybe it’s a threat to those who record history as they see fit, that there are others out there capable of offering another narrative. The promise that there will be an accountability for the lies. Maybe that’s idealistic. I’m prone to it. But it resonated a renewed hope in the power of literature to me. And I’m very appreciative of that.
My favorite lines are below.
“and Flavian, who had never in memory been held by a living soul, was spoons with a stranger.”
“She envied their casual assumption of place. They walked on the land as I they knew the wide world in all its grandeur and heartache from these lumpy hills and snakey valleys. Having known no other place, they assumed-as she had once assumed—that all places were like their place.”
“The old priest held his silence, even through the indignity of being slapped by a fish—he was a silent black pillar of longing.”
“The problem was that a monk’s life, every life, took on its own inertia. At one point, too young to understand that actions had consequences, he made decisions—he had decided that under no circumstances would he allow himself to be hauled off to an illegal war, he had decided to join a monastery.”
“’And you know, I like that about you or at least I’ve made my peace with it. Love—we’re in our thirties, we’re past love, soon enough we’ll be past sex. Take my word for it—I work in a hospital, I know what’s coming.”
“Meena waited for her eyes to adjust to the dark until she realized that her eyes would never adjust to this dark. Before this moment she had not realized how the universe was filled with light, even its farthest darkest reaches were illuminated by the light of the stars. Few places were truly dark and they were standing in one of them—at the bottom of a cave.”
“’But you know better than me you’re choosing between something that is and something that aint. There aint no such thing as security, not that I been able to see, anyway. I went chasing and I know. That’s just a dream somebody come up with to get us to buy whatever they happen to be selling.”
“Smith fired quick, one, two. Johnny Faye looked down at his chest where a red rose of blood blossomed, all the promise of summer in its petals.”
The language was beautiful, and it managed in it this kind of reverence for God and life, helping, I think, to blur those emotions and responses which showcases that while we might use different terms and books and ideals to grapple with these issues, it comes from a similar place of awe, a unifying awe.
In a way, this novel feels like a threat to true criminals. To those people that embrace their greed in the shadows. Or maybe it’s a threat to those who record history as they see fit, that there are others out there capable of offering another narrative. The promise that there will be an accountability for the lies. Maybe that’s idealistic. I’m prone to it. But it resonated a renewed hope in the power of literature to me. And I’m very appreciative of that.
My favorite lines are below.
“and Flavian, who had never in memory been held by a living soul, was spoons with a stranger.”
“She envied their casual assumption of place. They walked on the land as I they knew the wide world in all its grandeur and heartache from these lumpy hills and snakey valleys. Having known no other place, they assumed-as she had once assumed—that all places were like their place.”
“The old priest held his silence, even through the indignity of being slapped by a fish—he was a silent black pillar of longing.”
“The problem was that a monk’s life, every life, took on its own inertia. At one point, too young to understand that actions had consequences, he made decisions—he had decided that under no circumstances would he allow himself to be hauled off to an illegal war, he had decided to join a monastery.”
“’And you know, I like that about you or at least I’ve made my peace with it. Love—we’re in our thirties, we’re past love, soon enough we’ll be past sex. Take my word for it—I work in a hospital, I know what’s coming.”
“Meena waited for her eyes to adjust to the dark until she realized that her eyes would never adjust to this dark. Before this moment she had not realized how the universe was filled with light, even its farthest darkest reaches were illuminated by the light of the stars. Few places were truly dark and they were standing in one of them—at the bottom of a cave.”
“’But you know better than me you’re choosing between something that is and something that aint. There aint no such thing as security, not that I been able to see, anyway. I went chasing and I know. That’s just a dream somebody come up with to get us to buy whatever they happen to be selling.”
“Smith fired quick, one, two. Johnny Faye looked down at his chest where a red rose of blood blossomed, all the promise of summer in its petals.”
Displaying 1 - 12 of 12 reviews