As the ‘Crow’ flies
Eileen Garvin delivers an enticing nature novel
Ajuvenile American crow is separated from its parents. Nicknamed Charlie, the crow is the charming connective tissue for the three main human characters in “Crow Talk,” Eileen Garvin’s enticing nature novel.
The fledgling crow narrowly escapes a swooping eagle’s claws, finding shelter and aid in the kitchen sink, then the bathtub, of Frankie O’Neill’s family’s lake cabin in the Pacific Northwest.
The central characters of the novel are O’Neill, an ornithologist wrestling with academic politics while seeking approval of her master’s thesis by her dissertation committee; and Anne Ryan, an Irish-born musician-music teacher, who offers protection, care and understanding to her 5-yearold son, the alert, self-directed Aiden. Anne must deal with in-laws’ tough-toned opinions on child-rearing.
The third human is Aiden, who listens closely to what others say and how they say it. Aiden himself doesn’t speak. He hums. Considered “strange,” Aiden is diagnosed as autistic later in the novel.
Frankie’s family and Anne’s husband’s family are seasonal lakeshore neighbors, though Frankie and Anne had never met. When they finally do, they warm to each other. And Aiden finds refuge in a book on birds at Frankie’s home.
“Crow Talk” is Garvin’s second novel. Her first, released in 2021, was “The Music of Bees.”
She also authored the 2010 memoir “How to Be a Sister.” Garvin’s older sister Margaret’s autism was the subject of the memoir.
“I know that Margaret influenced my writing of Aiden. She has influenced all of my writing,” Garvin said in a phone interview from her home in Hood River, Oregon.
Garvin has had a long, close relationship with nature, starting when her parents bought a lakeside cabin in northern Idaho.
“It was not only a place to be attuned to nature but a place of respite for all of us, including Margaret, who had autism when nobody knew what autism was,” she said. “That’s when I connected with the birds, and the water, and all the lovely things that were there.”
Garvin’s love of nature remains a constant in her life: She’s an avid backyard birder and backyard beekeeper.
Readers of “Crow Talk” will learn a great deal about the American crow through Frankie’s note-taking while reading “G. Gordon’s Field Guide to the Birds of the Pacific Northwest,” and recalling a professor’s commentaries on the member of the corvid family.
Frankie quotes the professor: “Crows are cooperative breeders. Older siblings help raise new broods and remain in close proximity to their parents for the length of their lives.”
Regarding the crow’s range, Frankie quotes “G. Gordon’s Field Guide:” “Year-round in the contiguous lower forty-eight, summers across Canada, excluding coastal British Columbia.”
Garvin’s strongest academic interest has been English, not ornithology.
She admits to being a “dyed-inthe-wool English major with a wannabe complex for biology.”
After getting a bachelor’s degree from Seattle University, Garvin earned a master’s from the University of New Mexico in English language and literature. She taught English composition classes at UNM as a teaching assistant.
Garvin worked for the East Mountain Telegraph and for three years was managing editor for the New Mexico Business Weekly, writing articles on tribal and small-town economic development.
Her husband did his medical residency in family practice at UNM. His family has a now-leased cattle ranch in Tucumcari.
Garvin initially focused her new novel on the spotted owl, a quintessential bird of the Pacific Northwest that is easy to find. “I needed to switch to a different bird. I wanted a bird that was attractive to people, in the backyard, on the trail, in the city,” she said.
And she wanted what she termed “an underdog bird” as opposed to something more likable. “Some people think of the crow as annoying or gross. They eat roadkill. (Forage) garbage that humans leave everywhere. (Crows) think, ‘This is the place for us.’ I think of them as useful and helpful.”