Inspired by true events, is a poignant fable about a woman, her
husband and a Catbird, set against the backdrop of Russia’s invasion of
Ukraine. Reflecting on global conflicts and human resilience, the book offers a
universal message of hope and solidarity in tumultuous times worldwide.
Catbird
By Julia Marie
Davis
Genre: Women’s
Fiction, Current Affairs
With
the immediacy of an op-ed and the narrative feel of a memoir, Catbird embodies
the visceral response—angst and exasperating sense of helplessness inflamed by
the distance between the will of the people and our national policy, and the
bewilderment we feel—to the barbaric violence and violations of human rights
happening in Ukraine. Set against the background of seasonal drama in the bird
world, it has the sense of a fable, while still holding all the anxiety of the
contemporary events we are living through, witnessing, mourning, and opposing.
Told in a series of micro-episodes, Davis channels the fears and
fragility of the world order, mirroring the anxiety caused by a continual
barrage of contemporary conflicts we are
living through: witnessing, mourning, opposing. A simple and straightforward
story on the surface, Catbird expresses untold angst and an exasperating sense
of helplessness. This feeling is inflamed by the distance between the will of
the people, evolving national policies, and the bewilderment we feel—to the
barbaric violence and the violations of human rights unfolding not just in
Ukraine but elsewhere around the world.
“Julia Davis’s Catbird is a lyric meditation on a wounded world, one where some of us are safe while horror and war ravage innocent women and children in a distant land. But are we safe? The narrator knows too keenly, and feels too sharply, to believe that we are. Davis writes viscerally and from the heart.”
—Dinty W. Moore, author of The Mindful Writer
“Julia
Davis’s Catbird is an urgent, meaningful meditation on war, power, and fragility
of the world. It’s 2022 and the invasion of Ukraine has begun. From her place
of relative safety, Eve reads of the bombings, the fleeing families and
abandoned crops as she ponders the corrupt desire for absolute power and fears
she is witnessing the beginnings of World War III. Woven throughout this
witnessing are images of the birds she watches in the trees around her house,
making tangible the fragility we share in this time when the possibility of
invasion threatens us all.”
—Karen Osborn, author of Centerville, Patchwork (a New York Times Notable
Book of the Year), Between Earth and Sky, and The River Road
“As
a woman of color cheering for those who wish to survive any and all wars
against us I hope you read this book with the fear yet compassion it
shares."
—nikki giovanni, New York Times best selling and Emmy-award nominated
author of Bicycles: Love Poems (2009), The Nikki Giovanni Poetry Collection
(2004), and Make Me Rain: Poems & Prose (2020)
Amazon * Middle Creek Publishing * Bookbub * Goodreads
Julia Marie Davis is an American poet and novelist. Julia's
writing has appeared in The Bangalore Review,
The Dillydoun Review, New Note Poetry, Moonstone Arts Center's Nasty Women's
Anthology , and TaintTaintTaint Literary Magazine. She holds a
BA in English from Boston College and an MFA in Creative Writing from Fairfield
University. Her novella, CATBIRD (2024,
Middle Creek Publishing & Audio) weaves a fictional narrative with Russia's
invasion of Ukraine, delivering a poignant lyrical message of hope and
resilience in the face of global turmoil.
Follow the tour HERE for special content and a giveaway!
$30 Amazon giftcard
(WW – 1 winner),
Print Copy of
Catbird – (US only - 3 winners)
Print Copy of Catbird - (UK only - 3 winners)
