Blackbirds by Chuck
Wendig
Published: Angry
Robot Books (2012)
Series: Book 1 of
Miriam Black
The Book:
“Miriam Black knows how you’re going to die. She’s foreseen hundreds of car crashes, heart attacks, strokes, and
suicides. She merely needs to touch you — skin to skin contact — and she knows
how and when you’ll die.
But when Miriam hitches a ride with Louis Darling and shakes his hand, she
sees that in thirty days Louis will be murdered while he calls her name. Louis
will die because he met her, and she will be the next victim. No matter what she does she can’t save Louis. But if she wants to stay
alive, she’ll have to try.” ~TerribleMinds.com
This is the first novel I’ve read by Chuck Wendig, and it
kicks off a series of three books about Miriam Black.
My Thoughts:
I think that a lot of whether one likes Blackbirds or not may come down to one’s reaction to the heroine,
Miriam. She’s definitely not an
admirable character—a foulmouthed drifter that robs people who come to untimely
deaths. However, she is very aware
that she isn’t a good person, and that knowledge is slowly destroying her. She seems to be sort of a victim of
learned helplessness, in that she hates herself and her situation and is
convinced that she is completely incapable of effecting any kind of change to
either. This made her a
frustrating character to follow sometimes, but I also really wanted to see her
find some way to begin to rebuild herself and her life.
The conversational style of the prose in Blackbirds is clearly flavored by
Miriam’s voice, though she is not the narrator. The style is pretty simple and blunt, with quite a lot of
profanity, which suits Miriam’s abrasive personality and sarcasm. Miriam’s depressed, jaded view of life
is reflected in the grungy descriptions of cheap diners, truck stops, and
motels where she spends much of her time. There’s a lot of focus on trashiness,
complete with descriptions of cockroaches and “piss-yellow” lights. Due to Miriam’s ability, the story is
also peppered with pretty gruesome descriptions of people dying. The violence and dirtiness was
unrelenting throughout the story, and it could be wearing at times.
Miriam’s story in Blackbirds
is a relatively straightforward thriller, with the paranormal flair of her
curse. Miriam’s involvement with Louis’s impending death is connected to her
unwilling entanglement with a pathetic conman that is being chased by some
over-the-top evil gangster types.
The tension and the action scenes seem like they would work well in
film, which might be due to the fact that this version of the novel is preceded
by a screenplay version. However, none of these side characters seem
particularly nuanced: Louis is nice, the conman is sleazy, and the gangsters
are basically evil. This fits the
cinematic nature of the story, but is less satisfying, to me, in a novel. I enjoyed how the story ended, though,
and how the events of the story enabled Miriam to regain some sense of power
over her own circumstances. While
there is clearly more to Miriam’s story that can be explored in future novels,
I felt that Blackbirds concluded
satisfactorily as an individual novel.
My Rating: 3/5
Blackbirds is a
very grungy story featuring a deeply flawed protagonist—vulgar, unkind Miriam
Black is not an easy heroine to like.
I appreciated that her negative traits are acknowledged in the story,
though, and that she is not happy with the person that she has become. A major question throughout the story
concerns whether she is capable of improving herself and her situation, or if
‘fate’ will have the last word. The story is mostly a relatively
straightforward thriller, one with a pretty large amount of profanity, general
dirtiness, and violence. Blackbirds sets the stage for more stories
of Miriam Black, but it also works fine as a standalone novel.