Karen Green’s debut novel Yellow Birds (Re:Books Publishing) is being hailed as a beautiful and textured exploration of love, community, and learning to accept ourselves and each other.
In the Toronto Star, Nancy Wigston writes that Yellow Birds, “carries readers into the heart of a vanished musical era, and does it with style and panache.” If you’re looking for a singular and stunning coming-of-age novel to lose yourself in this season, be sure to put this on your reading list.
After reading Green’s book, we had to know about why Green set the novel when she did: just before the digital revolution, in the mid-1990s. So we invited her to our Power Q & A series and asked!
Welcome, Karen!
Yellow Birds by Karen Green.
Q: Would you tell us why you decided to set the novel in the time period you did?
A: The reason for this was intentional and two-fold: first -- because Yellow Birds is based on a lot of my own experiences when I was a young Deadhead, and that was in the mid-90s. I think fan culture is having a moment these days as well, but I would never have set Yellow Birds in a contemporary timeframe, because second -- cell phones and the internet solve too many problems. I couldn’t let my protagonists Google Map their road trip route or text each other when there was conflict. That’s just way too easy.
More about Yellow Birds:
Set in a time just before the digital revolution, Kait is a young woman searching for identity and community. A group of outcasts called the Yellow Birds take her town to town on what they refer to as the Open Road Tour. One night, when Kait is feeling kinship with this group of Birds, a man sits beside her who alters her fragile plans for the foreseeable future. Filled with sex, drugs, music, and cults, readers won't be able to get enough of the groupie lifestyle entangled within a bohemian love story.
Author Karen Green.
About Karen Green:
Karen Green is a writer and editor in southwestern Ontario. Her essays, poetry, and fiction pieces have appeared in The Globe and Mail, CBC, Today’s Parent, Room Magazine, Harlequin, Chicken Soup for the Soul, Bustle, and The Rumpus. She is also the author of two young readers books and is the lyricist for several children’s pop songs.