Cher Ami and Major Whittlesey

Starred review from May 15, 2020
An imaginative and audacious biographically inspired storyteller, Rooney portrayed poet and artist Weldon Kees in Robinson Alone (2012) and ad writer and poet Margaret Fishback in Lillian Boxfish Takes a Walk (2017). Here Rooney brings forward with bravura empathy and preternatural detail two WWI heroes, two battered survivors of a horrific military debacle: Cher Ami, a conscripted British homing pigeon who saved the so-called Lost Battalion, and American Charles White "Whit" Whittlesey, the officer in charge. Fluent in the most gruesome of facts, the most subtle of feelings, and the most compassionate of speculations, Rooney gives voice to bird and man, each a misfit. Observant, wise, and witty, Cher Ami tells her story from within a glass case at the Smithsonian, explaining that she didn't mind having a male name, given her love for other females. Brainy, disciplined, and traumatized, Whit reflects on how diligently he concealed his homosexuality as a Harvard law student, Wall Street lawyer, and army officer responsible for resolute young men unconscionably betrayed by cosseted commanders. Rooney uses Cher Ami's bird's-eye view and curious afterlife to exhilarating, comic, and terrifying effect, while Whit's tragic fate is exquisitely rendered. An unforgettable maelstrom of emotion and bloodshed, this is a plangent antiwar novel, call for sexual equality, celebration of animal intelligence, and tribute to altruism and courage.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2020, American Library Association.)

June 1, 2020
Rooney follows Cher Ami, a British-born homing pigeon, and Charles Whittlesey, a Harvard-educated lawyer and WWI veteran, in this disappointing tale (after Lillian Boxfish Takes a Walk). Cher Ami and Whittlesey alternately narrate their life stories leading up to the war: Cher Ami, female despite the name, is hatched into a happy pigeon family on an idyllic farm and becomes a prize-winning racer; Whittlesey, a New Englander, enjoys New York’s privacy and abundance of other secretly gay men. As a commissioned officer, Whittlesey must adjust to the coarse draftees under his command, while Cher Ami is a natural in her training (“The day I first flew home was the day I knew the meaning of true purpose”). Whittlesey goes on to become an effective commander, leading his men with pistol drawn and exceeding expectations from superiors. This proves dangerous when his battalion (now famously known as the “lost battalion”) gets trapped behind German lines and is under attack for days before they are relieved. Cher Ami, especially when talking about her youth or her taxidermied afterlife in the Smithsonian, is often appealing, but the two decorated war heroes are often tiresome, whether explaining how pigeons can’t understand human racism or the hollow life of a hero who couldn’t save his men. Rooney’s characters’ tendency to belabor the obvious ultimately sinks the book.

June 1, 2020
A World War I saga narrated by a homing pigeon and an American military officer, both real-life heroes. On Oct. 4, 1918, Cher Ami, a British-trained carrier pigeon, flew a highly dangerous mission in France, delivering a vital message to headquarters from besieged American troops on the front lines. The bird, now stuffed and on display at the Smithsonian, tells her story on the centenary of her historic flight. Maj. Charles Whittlesey was a well-educated, mild-mannered Manhattan attorney who enlisted in the Army and served as commander of what came to be known as The Lost Battalion. From Whittlesey's account, we learn how he and his men were trapped in enemy territory and cut off from supply lines for five hellish days, under attack not only from the Germans, but from American "friendly fire." It was Whittlesey who wrote the desperate note that Cher Ami--though severely injured in flight--managed to convey. The major was a strong, well-respected leader, but he held himself responsible for the many deaths and disfiguring injuries in his regiment. Returning home from war, he withered under the glare of the hero's welcome and sudden fame thrust on him. Rooney, author of Lillian Boxfish Takes a Walk (2017), has a lot on her mind here. Her well-researched novel touches on the folly of war (particularly this war), the sentience of animals, and--especially--survivor guilt and imposter syndrome. Rooney's writing has a delicate lyricism; particularly vivid are passages describing the horrific sounds (and smells) of battle. The talking pigeon does give one pause: She's hardly the first such creature in literature, but some of her observations, especially when she rails against human foibles, border on cute. Still, she injects humor and whimsy into an otherwise solemn story. A curiosity but richly imagined and genuinely affecting.

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