#797 Karen Russell- The Seagull Army Descends on Strong Beach- 1979
Nal is in a weird point of his life. He is a lonely teenager with an out-of-work mother having a nervous breakdown, and a freeloading older brother that has just started dating the girl he has eyes for.
“That summer Nal was fourteen and looking for excuses to have extreme feelings about himself.”
He is the responsible one and the only one in the family that is working. The pressure, his age, and his normal disposition has lead him to a desire for disassociation. He wishes to exist outside of himself, he often has a running dialogue like a play by play sports caster going. This summer he is being followed and haunted by seagulls. While many other birds represent death and an ominous future, gulls are scavengers.
“The seagulls are stealing scraps of our lives to feather this weird nest…These birds are messing with our futures.”
These items act as sort of talismans for Nal and push him along in different directions. Whether they exist as anything mystical or whether he has conjured meaning out of normal avian activity is up to the reader.
Word of the Day: Homunculus- a miniature adult believed to inhabit larger beings.
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