My attention was captured within the first paragraph of this delightful, unique, somewhat weird book. It was captivating enough I could suspend disbelief through the entire novel. I loved it!
Tiny, a human, has intercourse with a female owl and becomes pregnant with an owl-baby. Tiny’s husband repeatedly tries to reassure her that their child is not an owl, but Tiny knows the fetus is. As he tries to reassure her, he’s also repelled as Tiny has started to smell—her scent becomes that of an owl. She also knows when the ultrasound machine’s noises are disturbing her baby but is unable to convince either her husband, the ultrasound tech of that fact. uniquely, alluringly strange book this is! Though the author never deals with the biology behind this bizarre union, interspersed through the book are bits of real biology, such as when Tiny follows the fetus’s development through the developmental stages of a poppy seed sized embryo at two weeks of age until it joins the phylum Chordata.
Chouette is about motherhood, that giant leap into the unknown women face when they become pregnant. Tiny’s love for her infant (once she gets used to the idea of being an owl-mother), becomes all-consuming. Chouette is a wild thing, unconventional, and violent at time. Tiny’s husband, on the other hand, wants her to be an ordinary child, at the cost of her individuality.
As Tiny is a cellist, music is a recurrent theme in the book. There’s a playlist on the author’s Goodread’s page.
Written in the present tense, Chouette contains an urgency that makes the novel seem quite intimate. You’re always in Tiny’s point-of-view. This debut novel is poetic, often lyrical, yet disturbing, engaging, and absolutely unique. I haven’t read anything as unique since Her Body and Other Parties by Carmen Maria Machado.
********************
Chouette is available through Amazon.
********************
This post contains Amazon Affiliate links. As an Amazon Associate, I earn a small amount from qualifying purchases.
