The Night Bird Cantata

In a debut novel of startling lyrical power, author Donald Rawley re-creates the long, hot Southwestern summer of 1968 through the eyes of ten-year-old Lindsay Paul (L.P.) Fowler, a hard, pretty, and effeminate only child in a wealthy Arizona family. Abandoned without warning by his self-involved mother and cruel, dictatorial grandmother, L.P. is sent off to spend a magical summer with Betty, his grandmother's maid, in black South Phoenix. A former jazz singer at war with inner demons of her own, Betty is the only adult in L.P.'s small universe with room in her heart for the troubled boy -- offering him a friendship born of shared pain. And in a remarkable season of fever dreams, betrayals, loss, and rude sexual awakenings, L.P. will learn much about the fragile masks grown-ups hide behind and the weapons they use to wound, setting him free for flight, like the unseen night birds singing in the dark.… (more)