My Hummingbird Father (Extract for Blog Tour) by Pascale Petit

From Goodreads

A beautifully lyrical debut novel from the Ondaatje and Laurel Prize-winning author (Salt Modern Fiction)

When artist Dominique receives a letter from her dying father, a reckoning with repressed memories and a pull for romantic and familial love sends shock waves through her life, as she journeys to Paris to face the places and events of her early years. Balanced with visits to the Venezuelan Amazon, where Dominique explores a spiritual and loving longing (meeting a young guide, Juan), a raw and tender unfolding of this love story is a parallel to the uncovering of the shocking truth of Dominique's birth, and her parents' relationship.

'I am in love with this book! Haunting, grotesque, lush and strangely tender. A stunning debut novel, afraid of nothing and deeply poetic.' – Warsan Shire

'My Hummingbird Father shatters and heals, distils redemption out of a history of pain and abuse, and is one of the most affecting books you will read this year.' – Nilanjana Roy

My thoughts

Thanks to Helen Richardson for the chance to take part in the blog tour of this book.  

This is the debut novel by Pascale Petit, who has previously written poems and published books of the poems that she has written.  I had never heard of her until I was asked to take part in the blog tour of this book.

An extract from page 54.

'They reach their first camp–Guayaraca–where Juan pitches her tent under one of the two thatched roofs. Dominique throws herself on to her sleeping mat to recover but when she gets up Juan has vanished. She boils water for tea and bathes in the stream nearby, washes her wet clothes and lays them out to dry in the sun, wondering where he’s gone and if he’ll return. She eats alone. When she goes to the bushes to pee there’s a grunting sound and for a moment she’s terrified it’s a jaguar or a peccary. But a hummingbird appears–the grunting is the sound its wings make. It whirrs up to her and hovers just in front of her face, its black eyes shining into hers, bill aimed straight at her.

Twilight is brief and with it the rains start again–a wall of sound around the unwalled roof. She’s grateful for the ditch dug around the shelter and so are the frogs with their peeps and rings like doorbell chimes. She checks her tent for the puri puris whose bites are itchier than mosquitoes, then drifts off to sleep, only to be repeatedly woken by thunder. 

She wakes at 4:30, startled by Juan’s footsteps. He tells her he spent the night with a group of Pemón in a shack further up the trail and has already had breakfast, so she boils some porridge and tea, and as the water boils, tells him about the hummingbird. He listens intently as she describes its glittering eyes and how it looked fearlessly at her as the wings made their peculiar grunting hum.'

Sadly,  I haven't had time to read all the story and I have chosen to post my stop on the blog tour as an extract post.  What I have read of the book so far has been very engaging and I can't wait to get back to reading the story then I can post my review of the story in due course.

The writing is very engaging, lyrical and helps the reader imagine the scenes in their head as they read along to find out what is happening in the lives of Dominique and her estranged dying father, through the past and present.  

I look forward to reading more by this author.  I will be looking out to read some of her poetry in due course.