Winter Birds

A man reminisces about growing up with an abusive father in a transient Southern family, in this debut novel by the author of How I Shed My Skin.
On a snowy Thanksgiving Day in North Carolina, a dreamy eight-year-old Danny Crell is pushed headlong into the adult world by a violent quarrel between his parents, Bobjay and Ellen.
Bobjay is no longer the man young Ellen married. A debilitating farm accident and a steady consumption of alcohol have seen to that. Doctors, landlords, and farm bosses have certainly added to the trouble. Bobjay’s brutal fits of rage and jealousy are beginning to take their toll on his wife and five children, with the two hemophiliac boys, Danny and Grove, especially vulnerable. Still, Ellen will do just about anything to keep Bobjay home and sober—and keep her family together. But sooner or later they will all need to face the monstrous man Bobjay has become.
Jim Grimsley's brilliant first novel unfolds in a strikingly unconventional way—as the boy tells himself his own story—a shattering story of heartbreak, violence, and the endurance of the spirit.
Winner of the American Academy of Arts and Letters’ Sue Kaufman Prize for First Fiction.
Praise for Winter Birds
“Tell everyone.” —Dorothy Allison, author of Bastard Out of Carolina
“Like Greek tragedy, Winter Birds moves inexorably from its hypnotic opening to its final, chilling revelation, leaving the reader stunned, exhausted, and wonder-struck.” —Richmond Times-Dispatch
“An amazing voyage of self-discovery…. Grimsley has created a harrowing southern gothic world, reminiscent of Faulkner or Caldwell. A remarkable first novel.” —Scientific American
“A monster of a father, a steadfast mother, a white-trash Southern landscape viewed from a gay perspective, with the bitterness of memory but also with unwavering, unsentimental love-all this, of course, is Dorothy Allison territory. I can’t think of a solider tribute to offer Grimsley than to say that he doesn’t suffer in the comparison.” —The New Yorker
“This artfully told trip through hell is at once a survivor’s tale and a tribute to a mother’s endurance as she struggles to keep her family together against impossible odds.” —Library Journal