Other Birds

“She was fascinating to look at, like a piece of art you had to stare at a long time before it made sense.”

Zoey’s aesthetic response to Charlotte hints at the complexity that lies beneath her manufactured exterior. Charlotte’s appeal is surface-level—her manufactured identity lies on the outside and is well crafted. This observation also evokes Charlotte’s henna, linking this art form to the figurative canvas of Charlotte’s body.

“It wasn’t exactly the bohemian lifestyle that teenaged Charlotte had once dreamed of, but she’d never been able to totally overcome her need to have a place of her own so she wouldn’t have to be reliant on someone else for a roof over her head, like her mother.”

In many of Charlotte’s point-of-view chapters, she refers to “teenaged Charlotte,” whose dreams she’s trying to fulfill. It seems to be a reference to her childhood, but is eventually revealed to be a reference to a different person. Here, Charlotte’s prior self and current self are in conflict with one another—foreshadowing the revelation to come.

“It occurred to her that maybe the shock of Lizbeth Lime’s death had rattled him to his bones, and he was grieving. She felt embarrassed for not acknowledging it sooner.”

As the youngest character in the novel, Zoey exhibits the impulsivity and lack of awareness often associated with teenagers. This moment shows the early stages of her growth under the influence of her new friends. There is also a tongue-in-cheek reference to “rattling bones,” an image often associated with the dead.

“It was folklore Charlotte had grown up hearing, how these glass spheres called witch balls had been used for centuries to protect homes against ghosts and spirits.”

Charlotte’s witch balls are a recurring motif in the novel. Here, the reference to folklore foregrounds the importance of storytelling and engaging with family narratives—a guiding theme. The irony of this story is that ultimately, Charlotte needs protection not from the ghosts that haunt the building, but from the very person who told her this story in the first place.

“In it was a long list teenaged Charlotte had made of places she’d wanted to live and rules she wanted to live by when she finally ran away. It never failed to make her feel better that she could check off so many of them now.”

This time, “teenaged Charlotte”—a character who seems to be child Charlotte, but turns out to be an actual different person—is not in opposition with adult Charlotte; rather, here they are harmonious and complementary forces. Charlotte is proudly honoring the memory of her childhood friend—a commitment that gives her a sense of loyalty and dignity.

“Zoey visibly deflated. She was young enough to think that drama was something you had to run toward. She had no idea that drama doesn’t need to be chased. It knows exactly where you live.”

Although Zoey and Charlotte aren’t so far apart in age, Zoey has very minimal life experience, while Charlotte has survived on her own after a tragic and traumatic childhood. This makes their age gap feel wider than it really is. Charlotte becomes something of an older sister to Zoey, and here she displays an awareness of the path Zoey still has ahead of her while reflecting on her own.

“We got wings we can’t see, Camille used to say. We were made to fly away.”

Flight, literal and metaphorical, is a symbol throughout the novel. Each character at the Dellawisp has arrived there after a “flight” of some sort, whether this is leaving home or leaving behind a past self. Camille’s advice suggests that these transitions are healthy, even if they can at times be challenging.

“She had trouble imagining Lizbeth as a mother, though she didn’t know why. Women who had no business being mothers had children all the time. Look at her own mother.”

Family dynamics, and in particular motherhood, are under close scrutiny in the novel. This moment foreshadows the revelation about Oliver’s true parentage—not only because Lizbeth wasn’t his biological mother, but also because she never embraced a maternal role. The second part of the quote is directed at Charlotte’s mother, but could also apply to Lucy’s path to motherhood.

“I’m glad my condo was furnished. Because, how do you buy a couch? I have no idea. This grown-up thing isn’t for sissies.”

Unlike the other characters in the novel, Zoey is not yet an adult. She’s still managing the logistical challenges of growing up, such as buying furniture and learning how to grocery shop. However, her flippant comment has a double meaning as she soon learns that doing the “grown-up thing” means dealing with the complexities of self-knowledge and grief.

“If there was one thing Pigeon had taught her over the years, it was that invisible did not always mean imaginary.”

Each of the central characters is connected with ghosts in some way; characters’ relationships with ghosts vary from acceptance to disregard. Zoey falls in the middle of this spectrum, allowing for possibilities but not fully embracing the supernatural. Her open-mindedness toward the unknown and her acceptance of otherworldly strangeness characterizes the magical realism genre.

“Coming here was the last break from the only world she’d ever known, and only Pigeon was left. She was a childhood relic like a stuffed animal or a security blanket, and Zoey didn’t want to say goodbye to her.”

Pigeon’s true nature as Paloma has not yet been revealed, but Zoey has an instinctual knowledge of their deep and abiding connection. Zoey is moving from childhood to adulthood, which involves developing independence. Here, she experiences a growing divide between herself and her parents, even if she doesn’t recognize the form her mother is taking.

“Stories aren’t fiction. Stories are fabric. They’re the white sheets we drape over our ghosts so we can see them.”

This line is the novel’s epigraph, and appears later as a highlighted portion of the fictional novel-within-the-novel Sweet Mallow. The idea of stories as a vessel of discovery, connection, and renewal is a recurring thread. Here, “ghosts” has a double meaning: literal spirits, as well as memories or trauma. This conveys the point that stories can be used as a way of healing the past.

“Maybe I thought that if I just collected enough words, I could totally rewrite myself one day.”

Lizbeth considers the origins of her mental illness, gaining perspective in death that she couldn’t reach in life. This observation references several themes in the novel, including Dual Identities and the power of telling the right story. Lizbeth collected the medium through which stories are told in an effort to gain control over her own narrative and reconstruct it into the identity she wanted to embody.

“He had preserved it all with a story, like putting it under glass. How much of this place would still exist, would still be remembered, if he hadn’t shared it with the world?”

This moment highlights the power stories have to effect real change in the physical world. Charlotte, whose entire adult life is fictional, sees that Avanger’s novel—which she believes to be a work of fiction, but is in actuality a memoir—has built the place she now considers home. Avanger’s storytelling has literally become a tool for growth and connection.

“But Zoey was uneasy with the thought of untold stories. What happens to them? Where do they go? If you never share your stories with at least one other person, does that mean that they weren’t real, that they never really existed?”

This quote further underscores storytelling as a method of connecting with others. The question raise here is philosophical: Do stories that no one hears matter? Lizbeth’s secret is holding her back from moving on; she wants her story to be shared with the world to validate her pain and her behavior. Ultimately, however, although Lizbeth’s story remains hidden, she acknowledges that her experiences still exist within her even if no one else knows about them.

“If the people around you don’t love you just as you are, find new people.”

These words of advice from Zoey’s friend Kello summarize the novel’s theme of Blood Family versus Found Family. Most of the core characters have had difficulty finding love through their families of origin, but they at the Dellawisp, they have found a place where they can be accepted and loved by a found family.

“Children, don’t hold on to old love so hard you forget to live. Old love isn’t the only love you’ll ever have. And I can tell you from this side that it never really goes away, anyway.”

Camille describes love in its broadest and most encompassing sense. She addresses her “children,” but from her wise and elder vantage point, children could be any people who are trying to understand their place in the world. While love is generally portrayed as a positive force, Camille highlights the pitfalls and limitations of love and grief too tightly knotted together.

“When I was younger, food was all about trying to fill an emotional void. But she taught me food was really about storytelling.”

Food, a recurring motif throughout the novel, is intimately connected with love and nurture. Food brings people together, and allows characters to express deep feelings, as when Zoey and Charlotte dine at Mac’s restaurant. Connections come from the intentions behind shared meals—as Charlotte realizes from the sumptuous feast Mac lays out for her.

“Camille had taught him that food was love. So to him there was no clearer indication that love was lacking in those children’s lives than the fact that they went without food.”

Building on Quote #19, this passage links food, stories, and love. Here, Mac gains a deeper understanding of Charlotte, empathizing deeply with the deprivation she experienced in childhood. To reintegrate the separate pieces of herself, Charlotte needs to trust that her found family will support and sustain her.

“Oliver had been living in a gap that existed between Lizbeth’s mental illness and the real world, just like Frasier had always felt in between the living and the dead, sometimes losing sight of which was real.”

Many of the characters in the novel exist in similar “gaps,” between life and death, between childhood and adulthood, or between two conflicting identities. Bridging these gaps is the foundation of many of the novel’s character arcs. Even the Dellawisp occupies a gap of sorts: The setting is a liminal place, poised between what is real and what is not, near but set off from the main street, and bringing together people in transition.

“Camille says it wouldn’t have killed me. It would have given me holes. And the holes are where the love comes through.”

This metaphor of breaks in a person’s spirit recurs throughout the novel; here, Lizbeth’s fractures are like “holes,” while elsewhere, Charlotte’s psychic vulnerability manifests as “cracks.” In both cases, the damage is painful, but integral to an understanding of self—seeing this allows Lizbeth to finally move on.

“She could recite all the recovery steps by heart. But none of it had ever really sunken in, like words someone else had written on her skin.”

This moment contains two subtle allusions to moments earlier in the text. The first brings to mind Zoey’s childhood practice of reciting her mother’s story by heart, while the second references Charlotte’s practice of writing words, images, and lovers’ initials on her skin. These echoes have a circular quality and a sense of completion. In each case, the narrative didn’t fully resonate until it was experienced in a different way.

“Zoey wondered if one day she might wake and think Pigeon was just a dream. She decided right then and there that if that ever happened, it wouldn’t matter. A dream, a story, an invisible bird—it was all the same thing, really.”

This harkens back to Zoey’s earlier observations that things don’t need to be tangible to be real. The acceptance of the fluidity of life is something Zoey carries with her into adulthood, even as she finds the strength to leave the ghost of her mother behind. This moment shows that life doesn’t need to be a choice between the earthly and the magical, but can be a balanced harmony of the two.