This is a beautiful, dreamy novel, depicting a nightmarish time in our near future. Climate change has triggered a process of mass extinction of animal life on Earth, a process spiraling downward at increasing speed. Franny Stone, of Irish and Australian parents, has suffered trauma in losing her parents, unmoored and unable to bond lovingly when her Australian grandmother saves her, offering her a home. Franny is unable to choose a path for herself in life, doing menial work at a university where she meets her future husband, an ornithologist. She sits in on his lectures, entranced by his depth of knowledge and love of birds.

The story moves back and forth in time, slowly revealing the nature of Franny’s trauma and losses, and how it manifests in her adult life. The story has its own migratory pattern, gradually revealing the geography of Franny’s life. Franny shows us what we have lost contact with in ourselves, and why we do not feel the loss of animal species as deeply as we ought to— our connection with nature, the wildness within ourselves. We are part of creation, linked to all life on Earth. Whether you espouse a spiritual, religious view, or simply feel a natural affinity, we are linked in some special, ineffable way with the nature around us. Franny embodies the pull of animal migrations, in particular those of birds. She feels a constant pull to leave, move on, not put down roots.

As we learn of her desperate attempts to get a fishing boat and crew to take her on a journey to follow the last known flock of Arctic terns on their migration, she promises the birds will lead them to fish, at a time when few fish are left. Arctic terns have the longest global migration, traversing pole to pole many times over their life span. While we follow Franny’s journey, we learn of her marriage to Niall, the ornithologist, her struggles against her roaming nature for their love, the sleepwalking and violent nighttime behavior she wrestles with, and the loss they suffer together. As our Earth loses its animal life, Franny confronts her losses, ready to lose it all, and finding restitution, resolve, and meaning of her loss and life. I encourage you to enjoy this book and its deeper meanings. It is not a pollyanna sermon on climate change, but a good story, and symbolically rich allegory.