The Star Side of Bird Hill: A Novel

Naomi Jackson

Jun 2015 · Sold by Penguin

About this ebook

Two sisters are suddenly sent from their home in Brooklyn to Barbados to live with their grandmother, in this stunning debut novel
 
This lyrical novel of community, betrayal, and love centers on an unforgettable matriarchal family in Barbados. Two sisters, ages ten and sixteen, are exiled from Brooklyn to Bird Hill in Barbados after their mother can no longer care for them. The young Phaedra and her older sister, Dionne, live for the summer of 1989 with their grandmother Hyacinth, a midwife and practitioner of the local spiritual practice of obeah.

Dionne spends the summer in search of love, testing her grandmother’s limits, and wanting to go home. Phaedra explores Bird Hill, where her family has lived for generations, accompanies her grandmother in her role as a midwife, and investigates their mother’s mysterious life.

This tautly paced coming-of-age story builds to a crisis when the father they barely know comes to Bird Hill to reclaim his daughters, and both Phaedra and Dionne must choose between the Brooklyn they once knew and loved or the Barbados of their family.

Jackson’s Barbados and her characters are singular, especially the wise Hyacinth and the heartbreaking young Phaedra, who is coming into her own as a young woman amid the tumult of her family.

Praise for The Star Side of Bird Hill

“Jackson has written a first novel full of heart and heartbreak, a novel about going home, about the ties that bind three generations of women across years and despite absence. It is a bittersweet lesson in learning to recognize love.”
—Ayana Mathis, author of The Twelve Tribes of Hattie (Oprah’s Book Club 2.0 selection)

“Naomi Jackson has written a tender novel exploring the complexities of motherhood and childhood. The Star Side of Bird Hill holds together opposing elements—the book is quiet in the telling, but the story being told is sharp and vibrant. It is as much a story of the fears of childhood as it is a story about welcoming old age with optimism. A book that knows death and discovery. A book laced with pain but shimmering with hope. With care, the narrative addresses huge issues, such as mental illness, mortality, sexuality, and, at its very core, what it means to love another person as they are.”
—Tiphanie Yanique, author of Land of Love and Drowning

Ratings and reviews

The Star Side of Bird Hill is set primarily in Barbados, with occasional flashbacks to Brooklyn. I had expected this juxtaposition to play a significant role in the book, so I was disappointed to discover that the choice of Barbados as the novel's main setting serves merely to add a little exotic color to a family drama which could have taken place anywhere. There is nothing particularly wrong with this book, other than its very abrupt ending, but there is nothing particularly great about it, either. I don't regret having read a free ARC, but I would have felt that I wasted my money if I had purchased it. I received a free copy of The Star Side of Bird Hill through NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

No real depth to the characters. Or places in the book..book felt hurried

Inspirational! Moving! Just altogether good!

About the author

NAOMI JACKSON was born and raised in Brooklyn by West Indian parents. She studied fiction at the Iowa Writers’ Workshop, where she was awarded the Maytag Fellowship for Excellence in Fiction to complete her first novel, The Star Side of Bird Hill. Jackson traveled to South Africa on a Fulbright scholarship, where she received an MA in creative writing from the University of Cape Town. A graduate of Williams College, Jackson has had her work appear in literary journals and magazines in the United States and abroad.