Set in pre-Katrina Miami, Abu-Jaber’s most recent novel proves deeper and more insightful than the average beach read. Birds of Paradise follows the Muir family, who are living in an upscale Miami neighborhood. Brian, a middle-aged real estate lawyer, grows increasingly overwhelmed by a sense of personal inadequacy as he tries to provide for his family. His wife, Avis, is a gourmet pastry chef who fills her time and her loneliness with elaborate confections. Son Stanley, 23, has rejected his parents’ guidance by dropping out of college to open an organic supermarket.
The family has been rocked by the disappearance of their daughter, Felice, who begins running away at age 13. After several failed attempts, she finally succeeds at evading her parents’ search efforts and effectively removing herself from the family for good. By the time the novel opens, the 18-year-old has been away from home for five years.
Abu-Jaber writes from multiple perspectives, naming each chapter after the family member on whom it centers. Felice’s chapters explore the street culture of downtown Miami—complete with modeling tattoos for cash, downing shots, and dropping acid— as she forms a relationship with another runaway, a chivalrous aspiring bodybuilder named Emerson. Avis’ chapters are filled with artistically crafted baked goods, as the family matriarch spends much of her time in the flour-streaked kitchen reflecting on her daughter’s absence and attempting to construct the perfect pastry.
Although Felice’s disappearance lies at the core of the novel, Abu-Jaber manages to incorporate a number of thought-provoking subplots. Debates over the ethics of food production, for example, have driven a wedge between Avis and her son. Stanley commits himself to selling local, organic, healthy, affordable, fresh food; his mother, meanwhile, creates “almond and mango cream puffs, brown sugar lace cookies, and miniature napoleons of vanilla and guava: fleeting breaths of pâte à choux and buttercream that dissolve in single bites… She could charge almost any price and customers seemed to consider it a privilege to pay it.”
Meanwhile, her husband grapples with a risky financial deal. Feeling inadequate about his home (“four bedrooms instead of eight, balconies but no tennis courts, no servants’ quarters”), Brian is passive, indecisive, and baffled by his role as breadwinner and his place in a multicultural, deeply segregated city.
Clearly a lover of both words and food, Abu-Jaber weaves an intelligent story with a dense but lyrical style. Her delectable descriptions of pastries are matched only by those of lush flowers in the sultry southern Florida landscape. The winner of an American Book Award for her 2003 novel Crescent, the author illustrates her characters’ tiniest gestures with impeccable detail. After being stood up by her daughter at a café, for example, Avis “places her hands on the iron chair arms, letting her breath deepen, pushing up, uncurling from her tight hunch.”
The author takes her time telling the story, and at times, Birds drags. The plot intricacies—from Brian’s fascination with the beautiful Cuban woman in his office to Avis’ unexpected friendship with a Haitian woman named Solange—add bulk rather than depth.
Although the threat of Hurricane Katrina intensifies throughout the novel, more compelling are the subtle storms brewing within the Muir family, which has slowly unraveled since Felice’s departure. As the hurricane approaches, Abu-Jaber’s multiple storylines begin to converge with a satisfying cohesion that is missing from the novel’s first half. We finally learn what has driven from Felice from home, for example, as well as hear Stanley’s voice for the first time. Set against the backdrop of the region’s most violent storm in recent memory, the novel’s climax both satisfies and frustrates with resonant realism.
