New York Times:
We want stories to stir our desires. We also want them to lead us to places we don’t recognize and build us a temporary residence there. Bergman provides alluring glimpses into the strangeness, the ruthlessness, of the animal kingdom. Read more.
Starred Review, Publisher's Weekly: "Bergman’s stellar debut is set among the dense forests and swamps of her native North Carolina and rooted firmly in a crumbling and economically troubled post-crash America." Read more.
Kirkus Reviews: "A top-notch debut... that deserves big praise. The beginning, one suspects, of a fine career." Read more.
Booklist Review: "Bergman has a facility for characterization that makes the stories echo in memory long after the first reading... Readers will be shocked, amazed, and always entertained by the work of this accomplished writer of short fiction."
Rebecca Schinksky, Book Riot: "Megan Mayhew Bergman’s stories are as technically skilled as they are emotionally affecting." Read more.
Huffington Post: "Vermont native Megan Mayhew Bergman catalogs her run-ins with nature in this collection of 12 short stories, which use rare birds, mothering whales and scraggly dogs to talk about the human condition." Read more.
Boston Globe: "
Megan Mayhew Bergman is a top-notch emerging writer.Bergman possesses a crisp and often poetic voice and wily, intelligent humor." Read more.
Book Lady's Blog: "...there’s not a weak piece in the bunch! Every last story in this collection belongs here. It’s a rare book that deserves that praise, and an even rarer debut...This is destined to be one of my favorites of 2012." Read more.
BookBrowse: "Bergman's stories are swarming with nature - with oceans, wildlife, biology, the whole mess of planet Earth - but their real strength comes from how they're always able to distill it down, again and again, to us: our own, singular, one-shot human lives, and the people we share them with." Read more.
LitStack: "What makes the stories most unique is their profound and beautifully observed connections to nature, and most notably, to animals." Read more.
Jason Rice/3 Guys 1 Book: "...it has been a long time since I fell so hard for a collection of stories." Read more.
Associated Press: "The author...draws scenes and characters with a quick, incisive touch...
Their grief and anxieties are palpable. And most of their animals, like Faye Done Away, are lovable." Read more.
Katrina Denza/The Pilot:
"Birds of a Lesser Paradise" is a book I'd love to press into the hands of friends and strangers alike, saying, "Please read, and be transformed." Read more.
Interviews
Wall Street Journal: "I saw myself, and so many women of my generation, trying to make decisions about motherhood, trying to carve out satisfying lives in rural areas; these observations certainly populate the collection." Read more
Full Stop Mag: "I think the success of writing Southern narratives and Southern characters rests on the skill of the author. I certainly wrote some early stories that stirred up tired ideas, stories I’d like to forget about old people and biscuits and church." Read more.
Gulf Coast: "If I look back at my academic career, the first time I sat up straight in my seat and stopped drawing trees in my notebook was during an Anthropology of Gender class." Read more.
Interview with Julianna Baggott, author of Pure: "I'm a homeland-less, homesick homebody. Though I long for the south, and feel as though I have more clarity about it now that I'm gone, I love Vermont." Read more.
Seven Days: “I just appreciate the medium of fiction to be able to explore the idea of gender roles. Fiction can illuminate some essential human truths... that of woman, mother and animal lover is...the perspective I have to offer.” Read more.
Kenyon Review: "
The constructs of a story can be unusual, but they must also be rendered believably." Read more
Flyway, Journal of Writing and Environment: "I’m also interested in notions of primal innocence, and our own animal nature. Relationships with animals illuminate so much about characters." Read more.
Wake Forest University: "Nothing like a cosmic kick in the teeth to get you moving ahead on your dreams." Read more.
LitStack: "My dinner table is often filled with talk about cruciate ligaments, sutures, and biopsy results - and also stories that can break your heart." Read more.
The Newtonville Books Questionnaire: “What’s the next animal for the farm?” Polish hens, and a donkey, which I’d like to name Simon LeBon. Read more.
Interview with Joan Mora of What Women Write: "I’ve found that I’m a better writer when I’m engaging with my physical world, so I try to do that as much as possible." Read more.
