My take on The Birdwatcher by William McInnes

The Birdwatcher is a story about a man of forty-something who is more than a bit of a twitcher (he watches birds and ticks them off once he has seen them).  On the strength of a rumour that a PPMG (the elusive pale pygmy magpie goose) might have been spotted, or heard, he takes off from his none-too-secure job on leave-without-pay, and away from a developing relationship with a perfectly good girlfriend, to fly from Sydney to North Queensland. Ultimately what he finds is even more than he had hoped for.

I was drawn to this story because of the title of the book (I’ve always been a bit of a sucker for birds, although not in classifying them) and because of this, combined with it having been written by William McInnes (I’ve always been a bit of a sucker for this prominent Australian actor since seeing him in Look Both Ways).  William McInnes was available to sign copies of his book at the Bookcaffe in Swanbourne, so two birds, one stone – so to speak (although I have never actually approved of throwing stones at birds!).

This is the first of William McInnes’s books that I’ve read, but won’t be the last. Apparently it is the seventh that he has written. While I admired his acting prowess, and knew he wrote, I hadn’t read any of his previous books. This is not to say that The Birdwatcher is a perfectly constructed book. Fortunately. There are some slow passages toward the middle but I like this because it goes some way to reflecting the situation of the characters, and supports the second half beautifully. (It also supports my hypothesis that character development as the book progresses tends to influence a novel’s structure).

The second half picks up the pace and is, I think, really good.  It is humorous and touching, and contains subtle human insights, and observations that seem to have been honed by virtue of the author’s life and performance experience – an understanding of people and the subtleties of body language and ways in which dramatic effect can be effectively used in the writing.

This is a love story at its heart, of the natural world and of people, and a love relationship where the awkward guy gets the awkward girl. It is told with compassion, humour and intelligence. Oh, and nice writing!