Cher Ami and Major Whittlesey / Kathleen Rooney.
Record details
- ISBN: 9780525507826
- Physical Description: 324 pages ; 22 cm
- Publisher: [New York, New York] : Penguin Books, [2020]
- Copyright: ©2020.
Content descriptions
General Note: | Includes reading group questions and topics for discussion. |
Bibliography, etc. Note: | Includes bibliographical references. |
Search for related items by subject
Subject: | Whittlesey, Charles White, 1884-1921 > Fiction. World War, 1914-1918 > Campaigns > Meuse River Valley > Fiction. Cher Ami (Pigeon) > Fiction. |
Genre: | Historical fiction. |
Available copies
- 11 of 11 copies available at BC Interlibrary Connect. (Show)
- 1 of 1 copy available at Terrace Public Library.
Holds
- 0 current holds with 11 total copies.
Location | Call Number / Copy Notes | Barcode | Shelving Location | Holdable? | Status | Due Date |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Terrace Public Library | ROO (Text) | 35151001109180 | Adult Fiction | Volume hold | Available | - |
- Booklist Reviews : Booklist Reviews 2020 May #2
*Starred Review* An imaginative and audacious biographically inspired storyteller, Rooney portrayed poet and artist Weldon Kees in Robinson Alone (2012) and ad writer and poet Margaret Fishback in Lillian Boxfish Takes a Walk (2017). Here Rooney brings forward with bravura empathy and preternatural detail two WWI heroes, two battered survivors of a horrific military debacle: Cher Ami, a conscripted British homing pigeon who saved the so-called Lost Battalion, and American Charles White Whit Whittlesey, the officer in charge. Fluent in the most gruesome of facts, the most subtle of feelings, and the most compassionate of speculations, Rooney gives voice to bird and man, each a misfit. Observant, wise, and witty, Cher Ami tells her story from within a glass case at the Smithsonian, explaining that she didn't mind having a male name, given her love for other females. Brainy, disciplined, and traumatized, Whit reflects on how diligently he concealed his homosexuality as a Harvard law student, Wall Street lawyer, and army officer responsible for resolute young men unconscionably betrayed by cosseted commanders. Rooney uses Cher Ami's bird's-eye view and curious afterlife to exhilarating, comic, and terrifying effect, while Whit's tragic fate is exquisitely rendered. An unforgettable maelstrom of emotion and bloodshed, this is a plangent antiwar novel, call for sexual equality, celebration of animal intelligence, and tribute to altruism and courage. Copyright 2020 Booklist Reviews. - BookPage Reviews : BookPage Reviews 2020 August
A bird's-eye view and a message of hopeAn intrepid pigeon and a patient war hero are at the heart of this sweet and creative novel set during World War I.Â
Kathleen Rooney knew that writing half of her new book, Cher Ami and Major Whittlesey, from the point of view of a pigeon was a risk. But to the self-described animal lover, assuming a bird's POV made perfect sense.
"A lot of people dislike and malign pigeons, but I never have," Rooney says from her Chicago home, where she lives with her spouse, author Martin Seay. She rejects the idea of pigeons as rats with wings. "If you watch them, they're such good fliers. . . . They're really clean and smart. And rats aren't that bad, either. They're doing the best they can!"
Rooney, perhaps best known for her 2017 bestseller, Lillian Boxfish Takes a Walk, says her interest in a feathered narrator was sparked by one of her students at DePaul University, where she is an English professor. "A student named Brian referenced Cher Ami in a poem and said to me, âLook it up!' Of course, I didâand it blew my mind that this pigeon was so heroic and is stuffed and on display in the Smithsonian."
Her researcher instincts activated, Rooney learned that Cher Ami, a British homing pigeon, helped save a group of American troops known as the "Lost Battalion" during a horrific, multiÂday World War I battle. The story of this amazing pigeon, the terrible conflict and the extraordinary man who commanded the beleaguered battalionâMajor Charles Whittlesey, the other narrator of the novelâis strange, true and, in Rooney's hands, altogether haunting and compelling.
ALSO IN BOOKPAGE: Read our starred review of Cher Ami and Major Whittlesey.
"Once I learned about Charles, I was fascinated with himâhow good he was at some things, yet how ill-suited he was to be a war hero," Rooney says. In her reading about the era, she was intrigued by the cultural fixation on masculinity, a complicated issue that we continue to contemplate a hundred years later. "It was the early 20th century, people were moving from rural to urban, and there was a real fear of men getting soft," Rooney explains. "Going to war was something you had to do if you wanted to be a man."
In Cher Ami and Major Whittlesey, Charles reflects on his happier prewar days in New York City, where he ran a law firm with a college classmate. Many an evening, he visited parts of the city where he could spend time with other closeted gay men and truly feel like himself. When it came time for battle, though, he focused on strategy and survival as he and his men, positioned in trenches in a section of the French Argonne Forest known as "the pocket," found themselves cut off from supply lines, surrounded by enemy German troops and subjected to so-called friendly fire.
Carrier pigeons were the group's only hope of contacting headquarters and getting the other Americans to stop dropping shells on them. Cher Ami flew through gunfire to deliver Charles' message, which finally stopped the onslaught. (Incredibly, the note ended with "For heaven's sake, stop it.") She lost an eye and a leg, among other wounds, but was eventually able to hobble around on a tiny wooden prosthesis that the Army made for her. She lived another year before dying of her injuries in 1919, but in the novel she continues speaking to readers from her perch behind glass at the Smithsonian National Museum of American History, where she's been since her death.
"In so much of the world, there are those who have an enjoyable life built on violence they don't see. I hope it makes people think about that."
Of visiting Cher Ami at the museum, Rooney says, "I found it profoundly moving. The conflicts killed 10 million solders, 10 million civilians, and untold animals were lost. The fact that she was so important that they saved her, when normally pigeons with those injuries would have just been discarded, shows what she did and how important it was."
There's an interesting lesson to be learned from Charles' decisions in battle, too. "He was famous for something we'd describe as passive," Rooney says. "Once they were in the pocket, he waited as hard as he could. I'm an impatient, active person. . . . His act was stillness, waiting, keeping everybody's spirits up. The way he did that was amazing."
Although Charles was able to save 194 members of his 500-man division, he couldn't save everyone, and the experience took a heavy toll. He and his compatriots were given medals, held up as heroes and reminded of their wartime experiences daily, in a time when PTSD was only just beginning to be acknowledged.
"The only cure [for PTSD] is prevention," Rooney says. "War has been around forever, but I think it can end. It breaks people, and the way to not break people is to not make them [go to war] in the first place."
With Cher Ami and Major Whittlesey, she hopes "to make people think about why we still do this. To what extent, as a civilization, are we complicit? In so much of the world, there are those who have an enjoyable life built on violence they don't see. I hope it makes people think about that."
Rooney also hopes the book, with its portrayal of the charming and brave Cher Ami, will boost appreciation of our furry and feathered friends. After all, she says, "What aerodynamically is really happening when a bird like that goes into the air? Pigeons are really miraculous animals, and I think if you pick any animal and go really deep into how does it work, no matter your belief system, it makes you aware of something outside yourself."
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Author photo by Beth Rooney
Copyright 2020 BookPage Reviews. - Kirkus Reviews : Kirkus Reviews 2020 June #1
A World War I saga narrated by a homing pigeon and an American military officer, both real-life heroes. On Oct. 4, 1918, Cher Ami, a British-trained carrier pigeon, flew a highly dangerous mission in France, delivering a vital message to headquarters from besieged American troops on the front lines. The bird, now stuffed and on display at the Smithsonian, tells her story on the centenary of her historic flight. Maj. Charles Whittlesey was a well-educated, mild-mannered Manhattan attorney who enlisted in the Army and served as commander of what came to be known as The Lost Battalion. From Whittlesey's account, we learn how he and his men were trapped in enemy territory and cut off from supply lines for five hellish days, under attack not only from the Germans, but from American "friendly fire." It was Whittlesey who wrote the desperate note that Cher Amiâthough severely injured in flightâmanaged to convey. The major was a strong, well-respected leader, but he held himself responsible for the many deaths and disfiguring injuries in his regiment. Returning home from wa r, he withered under the glare of the hero's welcome and sudden fame thrust on him. Rooney, author of Lillian Boxfish Takes a Walkà (2017), has a lot on her mind here. Her well-researched novel touches on the folly of war (particularly thisà war), the sentience of animals, andâespeciallyâsurvivor guilt and imposter syndrome. Rooney's writing has a delicate lyricism; particularly vivid are passages describing the horrific sounds (and smells) of battle. The talking pigeon does give one pause: She's hardly the first such creature in literature, but some of her observations, especially when she rails against human foibles, border on cute. Still, she injects humor and whimsy into an otherwise solemn story. A curiosity but richly imagined and genuinely affecting. Copyright Kirkus 2020 Kirkus/BPI Communications. All rights reserved. - Publishers Weekly Reviews : PW Reviews 2020 June #1
Rooney follows Cher Ami, a British-born homing pigeon, and Charles Whittlesey, a Harvard-educated lawyer and WWI veteran, in this disappointing tale (after
Copyright 2020 Publishers Weekly.Lillian Boxfish Takes a Walk ). Cher Ami and Whittlesey alternately narrate their life stories leading up to the war: Cher Ami, female despite the name, is hatched into a happy pigeon family on an idyllic farm and becomes a prize-winning racer; Whittlesey, a New Englander, enjoys New York's privacy and abundance of other secretly gay men. As a commissioned officer, Whittlesey must adjust to the coarse draftees under his command, while Cher Ami is a natural in her training ("The day I first flew home was the day I knew the meaning of true purpose"). Whittlesey goes on to become an effective commander, leading his men with pistol drawn and exceeding expectations from superiors. This proves dangerous when his battalion (now famously known as the "lost battalion") gets trapped behind German lines and is under attack for days before they are relieved. Cher Ami, especially when talking about her youth or her taxidermied afterlife in the Smithsonian, is often appealing, but the two decorated war heroes are often tiresome, whether explaining how pigeons can't understand human racism or the hollow life of a hero who couldn't save his men. Rooney's characters' tendency to belabor the obvious ultimately sinks the book.(Aug.)