Description: "Mina is staring over the edge of the George Washington Bridge when a patrol car drives up. She tries to convince the officers she's not about to jump, but they don't believe her. Her husband, Oscar, is called to pick her up. Oscar hopes that leaving New York City for a few months will give Mina the space to heal, so they move to London. Mina, a classicist, works on her book about mythological women and searches for solutions to her failing mental health by pondering their lives. Penelope, Psyche, Leda . . . They all survived, didn't they? Mina finally finds a beam of light in Phoebe, a real-life woman, and Oscar and Mina's complicated love is tested. A gorgeously wrought novel, variously about love, mythology, mental illness, and the times we need to seek out milder psychological climates, Rowan Hisayo Buchanan's Starling Days is a complex and compelling work of fiction by a singularly gifted writer." -- Back cover.
Brief description: Rowan Hisayo Buchanan is an American and British writer. She received her BA from Columbia and her MFA from University of Wisconsin-Madison. Her first novel, Harmless Like You, was a New York Times Editors' Choice and NPR Great Read. She is the editor of the Go Home! anthology, and her work has appeared in Granta, Guernica, the Guardian, and the Paris Review.
Review Quotes: "A gripping, tender, and unsettling look at mental illness... Poetic and understated, this nuanced work by Buchanan also addresses adult-child relationships, the legacy of family trauma, and the challenge of offering unconditional love...Complex and resonant." --Kirkus Reviews (starred review)