The Birds of Opulence

By: Crystal Wilkinson

Narrated by: Allyson Johnson

From the critically acclaimed, award-winning author of Blackberries, Blackberries and Water Street comes an astonishing new novel. A lyrical exploration of love and loss, The Birds of Opulence centers on several generations of women in a bucolic Southern Black township as they live with and sometimes surrender to madness.

The Goode-Brown family, led by matriarch and pillar of the community Minnie Mae, is plagued by old secrets and embarrassment over mental illness and illegitimacy. Meanwhile, single mother Francine Clark is haunted by her dead, lightning-struck husband and forced to fight against both the moral judgment of the community and her own rebellious daughter, Mona. The residents of Opulence struggle with vexing relationships to the land, to one another, and to their own sexuality. As the members of the youngest generation watch their mothers and grandmothers pass away, they live with the fear of going mad themselves and must fight to survive.

Crystal Wilkinson offers up Opulence and its people in lush, poetic detail. It is a world of magic, conjuring, signs, and spells, but also of harsh realities that only love - and love that's handed down - can conquer. At once tragic and hopeful, this captivating novel is a story about another time, rendered for our own.

©2016 The University Press of Kentucky (P)2021 Tantor

Just ok

Not sure what I was expecting, but this was a bit underwhelming. I grow weary of these novels that are centered in Black trauma and pain. 😞

Great book, Terrible reading.

Within the first two chapters I decided to read it instead of listening, and that was a right decision. The reader does a weird thing where she drops inflection in the end of each sentence, and it sounds emotionless like AI. She starts a sentence as a human, but then loses energy and emotions and turns into a robot. This distracts from the amazing book it is.

As far as the book, definitely a good read. I’d compare it to Tolstoy in a way that it moves fast, but yet characters get fully developed, and depth is not lost.

The listening to the narrator’s voice captured my interest.

Saying that I enjoyed this book doesn’t seem right, given the life struggles of the characters. Still it is a book that I’ve had in my personal library for years. When I found it on audio books I started listening to it right away.
The narrator’s voice blended beautifully with the story making it hold my interest. It’s a book worth the reading and listening.

The Authentic Feel of My Ole Kentucky Home

I liked the vivid descriptions of country life and family life in a small Kentucky town. I appreciated the personalities and interactions among the various women and their families, the church socials, and the family interactions. I liked the vivid descriptions of sunsets, the weather, dew on the grass, the personalities represented and embodied in Ed Brown and the working men of the town as well as the women and their lives in their small town.

It reminded me of home. I know the author, and we grew up in the same town. I also read and especially enjoyed her book “Water Street”, because I grew up on that street. The performances in the book are well done and enjoyable.

Pleased I finally read this book.

A master storyteller

Crystal Wilkinson continues to amaze me sentence by sentence. The story of these women and of the man who came to love them, unforgettable!