Other Birds

After Zoey, Charlotte is the youngest resident at the Dellawisp; however, her life experience and years of supporting herself alone make her seem much older and more mature. Unlike Zoey, Charlotte is guarded and isolates herself from others. However, this outlook essentially starves her of human connection and drives her to crave too much of others, resulting in her misguided relationship with Asher.

Much of Charlotte’s conflict comes from trying to balance her real self (Pepper Quint) with the manufactured personality she’s adopted to honor her childhood friend (the real Charlotte). She often refers to the dreams and demands of “teenaged Charlotte,” which initially appear to refer to her past self but in reality refer to her dead best friend from the cult camp where they grew up. After what she saw as a failure to protect the real Charlotte, Charlotte/Pepper took on the girl’s identity until her own true self was suffocated. In spite of this, Charlotte’s true nature does bleed through in her need for the safety and stability of a real home. In addition to honoring the memory of her friend, Charlotte’s false identity protects her from the unresolved conflicts of her own past. By taking a dead girl’s name, she hides from her cult and the family that may still wish her harm. It’s not until the violent arrival of her mother that Charlotte is able to reconcile the two discordant sides of herself and move forward.

Charlotte’s two primary relationships in the novel are her new friendships with Zoey and Mac. Both of them encourage Charlotte to open herself up to new connections and feel more rooted. Because of these relationships, Charlotte begins to be more honest with herself about her own needs, rather than the unfulfilled dreams of “teenaged Charlotte.” She discovers how to carve out the stable home and family environment she’d always wanted, instead of remaining on the periphery.

Mac is largely characterized by his relationship with food. His craft expresses his grief over losing Camille, and his feelings of camaraderie and love toward Charlotte and Zoey. From a young age, he learned to associate food with love: The lack of food in his own childhood home was indicative of a lack of love, and the maternal love he later found with Camille was deeply characterized by the cornmeal-based meals she made for him and other neighborhood children. Food was the way she expressed love for those around her, and so he learned to express love in the same way. Mac’s rough childhood allows him to see Charlotte as a fellow survivor—she too was deeply malnourished in her camp.

As befits the magical realism genre, Mac doesn’t question the otherworldly happenings around him. Instead, he accepts Camille’s presence—in the form of cornmeal manifesting around him as he sleeps—as an unfortunate reality of his life, which initially prevents him from becoming close with Charlotte. However, he has trouble recognizing that this supernatural experience is not Camille’s doing. Rather, it comes from Mac’s inability to move on from his grief over her death. Only when he finds happiness and acceptance with Charlotte can he let go of Camille’s spirit and move forward, thereby setting both of them free to embark on the next stage of their journeys.

Another aspect of Mac’s character that’s explored is his relationship with his illicit cat, Fig. While Mac is not a rule-breaker, he keeps his rescued pet even though they’re forbidden in the Dellawisp. When Fig was almost killed and needed to be cared for, Mac was heartbroken. However, Mac restored Fig to health and gave him a safe, supportive home; his actions recapitulated Camille taking Mac in during his childhood. Mac’s care for Fig displays his empathy and compassion for all living things; he draws on his childhood experiences to put more love and care into the world around him.

Frasier is another character who struggles with duality of the self. Like Charlotte, he is portrayed through two different lenses until the story reveals that both are actually the same person: building manager Frasier and author Roscoe Avanger. Like Mac, Charlotte, Lizbeth, and Lucy, Frasier grew up with profound lack. In adulthood, he uses his financial success as a novelist to forget these early experiences: “he’d become an arrogant adult because he thought he deserved it when suddenly, because of his book, everyone did love and care” (227). Only by encountering Lizbeth and Lucy, and forming a paternal friendship with Oliver, does Frasier reclaim some of his sense of empathy and connection.

Frasier is also characterized by his relationship with the dead, whom Frasier can see and hear. His novel Sweet Mallow is actually the memoir of his grandfather, who shared his story from beyond the grave. Frasier tries to help ghosts—for example, trying to satisfy Lizbeth by finding her story. However, Frasier doesn’t push himself to honor ghostly wishes at all costs. When he realizes the true implications of Lizbeth’s secret—that she is not really Oliver’s mother—Frasier literally and figuratively closes the book on her past to protect Oliver. Frasier chooses to embrace the living, rather than lingering on mistakes of the past.

The novel also highlights Frasier’s close relationship with the dellawisp birds that flock the island. He writes about them, draws them, and even named his apartment complex after them. Frasier implements a strict rule about having other animals in the building, fearing for the safety of the birds. This suggests that he feels more at home with animals than with people, perhaps a result of his removal from others due to his ability to speak with the dead. His gift and his literary acclaim both contribute to a sense of distance and ostracization from others, which he begins to heal through his relationships with others in the novel.