All the Little Bird-Hearts

Starred review from October 23, 2023
British writer Lloyd-Barlow debuts with a gorgeous story of an autistic mother knocked off course by a whirlwind new friendship and her daughter’s coming-of-age. In 1988, divorcee Sunday leads a steady and regimented life in the English countryside with her 16-year-old daughter Dolly. Sunday’s routines include only eating foods that are colored white, working at her former in-laws’ greenhouse, and a fixation on Sicilian traditions. Her attempts to better understand social behavior are upended when wealthy, unpredictable Vita moves in next door. Soon, Vita sweeps Sunday and Dolly into weekly dinners with her husband, Rollo, and Sunday comes to believe that Vita is the first person to fully accept her since her older sister, Dolores, died when Sunday was a teen. What she doesn’t realize is that Vita and Dolly have been covering up their plans for Dolly to join Rollo’s home renovation business. The revelation leads Sunday to second-guess Vita’s charms and intentions, though she feels powerless to intervene. Lloyd-Barlow’s portrayal of Sunday’s contentment and confusions makes for deeply humanizing autistic representation, and her prose is arrestingly sharp. This auspicious debuts brims with quiet tragedies and lush emotional landscapes. Agent: Jennifer Hewson, Lutyens & Rubinstein.

November 1, 2023
A motherhood story unlike any other, Lloyd-Barlow's 2023 Booker Prize-longlisted debut novel is a heartfelt, firsthand account of a neurodivergent mother's experiences of love, pain, and loss in a world that requires constant translation. Living in the UK countryside, protagonist-narrator Sunday relies on an etiquette book to translate everyday social interactions. This task is made even more challenging with Sunday's teenage daughter Dolly's growing reliance on their new neighbors, who offer a seemingly glamorous future in London. As secrets are revealed and malicious intentions uncovered, Sunday's capability as a mother is continuously undermined, yet her love for Dolly remains steadfast: "[Dolly] is not mine, but I am painfully, hers." By combining Sunday's astute observations of a social world built largely on class structures, with flashbacks to her sister's untimely death and her mother's rejection of her neurodivergence, Lloyd-Barlow, who is autistic, delivers an engrossing page-turner that is not just about neurodivergence but also about Sunday, a character who is true to herself and skilled in distilling reality's ugly natures.

COPYRIGHT(2023) Booklist, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

Starred review from November 15, 2023
A neurodivergent woman finds her world opening up in conflicting ways when new neighbors sweep into her life. In the 1980s, the quietude of a sleepy town in England's Lake District is disrupted by the arrival of a London couple, Vita and Rollo. Next-door neighbors Sunday Forrester--a single mother--and her independent teenage daughter, Dolly, are gradually drawn into their urbane and seemingly nonchalant orbit. The extraordinary Sunday, who serves as the direct yet poetic narrator of Lloyd-Barlow's debut novel, enjoys the growing attention and friendship provided by the couple. Due to neurodivergence, Sunday has endured familial trauma and now spends her days isolated from the world beyond her home. Vita and Rollo's more glamorous lifestyle (and even diet, which varies beyond Sunday's preference for white foods) appeals to Dolly in ways with which Sunday cannot compete. The slow alienation of her daughter's affections creates a tone of menacing suspense and raises questions about the toxicity of ableism and entitlement due to affluence. Sunday relies on coping skills developed over the course of a lifetime of disenfranchisement and misunderstanding and often refers to a dated etiquette guide and a book of Southern Italian folktales as her guides through the world of the neurotypical. The constant need to decode social messages received from those around her is exhausting for Sunday, as is the need to balance her own comfort against what her great love for Dolly compels her to do. Lloyd-Barlow, who has autism, deftly interweaves themes of family disruption, class disparities, entitlement, and social alienation through a quiet narrative and succeeds in creating a tempest in a very small, provincial teapot. The novel was longlisted for the 2023 Booker Prize. Lloyd-Barlow's narrator is not a novelty--she is an effective, thoroughly human character in a thoughtful book.

COPYRIGHT(2023) Kirkus Reviews, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.