Birdless

In a Dying World, Love Takes Wing It's 2099, humanity is nearly gone, and the birds are already extinct. Portia walks the emptying streets of her dying town, hoping for a last glimpse of a bird. When she and her brilliant brother Ivan break into a neighbor's house looking for tools, they find Amelia— traumatized, starving, and hiding. As Amelia learns to trust her, friendship turns to passion, and Portia's narrow world opens into something wider and more joyful than she believed was still possible. In a world that has outlawed religion, Amelia introduces Portia to the faith of her grandmothers, a faith of the tactile and the real. Together, the two women go looking for other survivors: seven irreverent elders who call themselves the Nigh End Breakfast and Supper Club, and two abandoned children who make them, improbably, a family. Then a rift in time and space takes everyone Portia loves, stranding Amelia centuries in the past with Ivan and the children. Amelia begins to discover creative powers she never knew she had, and searches the dimensions for a living world where humans can love one another. Portia, held up by the stubborn humor of the old people, looks for hope wherever it can still be found. Birdless is a love story that refuses to end where it's supposed to. Praise for Birdless "Welcome to the end of the 21st century. In this hot, birdless future, romance blooms alongside hope, as we view the world through the eyes of a young woman who has known only the outcome of unbridled capitalism. Jenny Yates' skillful portrayal of this bleak landscape offers a path away from disaster, a path rooted in love and human kindness." —Rose Norman, author of The Pagoda: A Lesbian Community By the Sea "Jenny Yates has the rare ability to write a novel about humankind's certain extinction in a way that tempers despair. Using compelling, cinematic scenes and the deftly written embedding of daily life, past and present, Birdless tells the story of how passionate love between two young women becomes the tether that holds onto hope and creates a new world. And I must say my favorite characters, the ones that offer me my own hope, are the cohort of old people living together with joy and ritual through the final disintegration of the Earth." –Sandra Gail Lambert, author of the Lambda Literary Award-winning My Withered Legs and Other Essays. "Maybe the last days of life on earth are not actually the end of everything. In Birdless, Jenny Yates delivers a tale of hope. Portia and her younger brother Ivan seem to be the only people still living in their town until they discover Amelia in a nearby house where she is waiting to die. She comes home with Portia and Ivan, and Portia and Amelia find love with each other. They get food from cans out of public drawers that are replenished monthly by an unknown agency and water from the few outdoor spigots that still work. In their search for anyone else who might be alive in their town, they discover a group of very old people who live together contentedly in a tiny community, caring for each other amid their differences. They are glad to have company and share their stories with Portia and Amelia. Portia's younger brother Ivan, an autistic savant, keeps himself occupied with scrounging up odd bits of metal, tools, and screws. He says he is building a time machine. The human race is nearing extinction, and Ivan is determined to help it repopulate. This story flows smoothly and easily. The delicious prose takes us from one adventure to another with gentle tension and mystery. I loved all the characters and the ways they interacted with each other and with their dying world." –Merril Mushroom, author of Bar Dykes