It was a task to complete over the following days, along with writing and editing articles, contacting contributors and dealing with social media. I was expecting a well-written and informative book on an important topic: Hospice care.
What I didn’t bargain for was a beautiful, accessible and engaging novel, one that would keep me up at night, intent on JUST ONE MORE PAGE, just one more clue as to how the story would turn out.
The story – three stories actually – follow Deborah Birch, a hospice nurse, as she cares for a challenging patient, a discredited and seemingly bitter university professor. Originally shutting her out, Professor Reed has her read him his final academic work – a text on a Japanese attempt to bomb the forests of the Pacific North West – and through this, he subtly guides Deborah through a marriage which is crumbling around her.
The Hummingbird explores a three-fold loneliness: the loneliness of dying, the loneliness of an almost impossible period of marriage and the loneliness experienced by Deborah’s husband, Michael, as he attempts to conquer the demons in his mind, the shattering residue of his time as a US Army sniper in Iraq.
Stephen Kiernan writes knowledgably on three complex topics; the art of caring for a dying person, the hidden tragedy of contemporary war, and the secret history of World War II, while interweaving topics and themes to create an intensely readable story.
This book is excellent and I would recommend it to anyone within earshot.
You can find The Hummingbird on Amazon.
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