The Avian Hourglass

The Avian Hourglass is a surrealist novel that explores themes of mental health, the climate emergency, political polarization, and the growing reliance on technology. It follows a woman who dreams of becoming a radio astronomer and struggles to raise triplets while surrounded by characters who wear wings and build bird nests. The novel also reflects on the old fable of the Girl in Glass Vessel, a cautionary tale about prying back the façade of one's world.

Format: Paperback / softback
Length: 212 pages
Publication date: 26 September 2024
Publisher: Dzanc Books

The Avian Hourglass is a surrealist novel that explores the themes of birds, space, and the human mind. It is written by Lindsey Drager and is a stunning work that fans of Jesse Ball, Helen Oyeyemi, Yoko Ogawa, and Shirley Jackson will enjoy. The story follows a woman who dreams of becoming a radio astronomer and struggles to raise triplets she gave birth to as a gestational surrogate. She is surrounded by characters who wear wings, memorize etymologies, and build gigantic bird nests, and is bound to a town in which young adults must decide between two binary worldviews: YES or NO. When events begin to unfold that suggest a local legend about the town being the whole of the universe might be true, the woman finds her understanding of her own life and reality slipping through her fingers. The Avian Hourglass is a reflection on mental health, the climate emergency, political polarization, and the growing reliance on technology, and asks readers to reframe how they conceive of a series of concentric understandings of home: the globe, one's country, one's town, one's family, and one's own body.

Weight: 264g
Dimension: 139 x 217 x 15 (mm)
ISBN-13: 9781950539970