I do know a woman who had a lot of medical help but was able to have a baby later in life. She didn’t use a magical herb, medical science instead.
People in the YouTube interviews wanted to learn about what happened to Walter & the staff if Bird Hotel. If I came across sequel with little effort on my part, I might read it but not seek it out.
My breaking point: Leila’s Uncle Tommy has an eight-day leave in Paris. He meets and marries Noemi: picture of him in his army uniform with Noemi standing on the banks of a river with a bridge in the background. He then hurries back to England for a top secret training mission for the D-Day invasion a few weeks later.
Germans occupied Paris at the time; doubtful any American soldier would have wandered the city, in uniform no less.
I’m no historian but don’t have to be to get slammed with that section. Just no.
And, in terms of favorite character: the setting, hands down. Maynard did a great job with that. Now I see why.
The moment it was introduced - Chekhov’s volcano! Unless this meant that everyone expected it to erupt and the only question was when.
Very glad to know this because at some point I thought to myself, this is just a fairy tale - forget about logic or common sense or incredible naivety. Just go with the flow.
I’m also happy that I was among others in not being overly impressed - there have so many books where I felt like I just didn’t appreciate good literature but whew this wasn’t among them. So much of the descriptive language was great. But to an extent, it seemed like a love letter to her own resort with a plot badly framed around it.
And the abrupt finish! Reader, I reunited with Tom and had a baby. The End.
This is about the adoption disruption. No place for gift link; I hope those who are interested can read it or PM me. Also a link inside to her blog.
https://archive.nytimes.com/parenting.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/04/04/joyce-maynard-announces-failure-of-her-adoptive-family/
@Mary13 if this is too off-topic, just say so and I will edit it out. All I can say is, “Who the hexx did her homestudy?”
@Marilyn “ reader, I reunited with Tom and had a baby “ - 
I’m glad I didn’t know about Maynard’s Casa Paloma - I read it thinking it was all fantasy, but I think it may be partially a marketing ploy, especially when the last line of her NY TIMES article …
“ o — with the men still working — I started another novel about a woman from the United States who, in the aftermath of a personal tragedy, lands in a small village on the shores of a lake surrounded by volcanoes, in an unnamed Central American country. She finds herself unexpectedly running a magical hotel surrounded by orchids and birds.
At the time, I believed that what I was writing was a work of pure fiction, almost a fairy tale. It was a full year later that the thought occurred to me: I’d built a hotel, myself. Now I’d better figure out how to run one. And I did.”
@oldmom4896, thanks for that great, in-depth 2019 piece from The New Yorker. I read every word.
I didn’t realize until @mathmom mentioned it above that Joyce Maynard was the ingénue who had an affair with much older J.D. Salinger. I had a dim recollection of that story, but lost track of the details decades ago. It was quite interesting to read about it again.
This section stood out to me:
As Maynard grew her family, she served as the primary breadwinner, writing regular columns and taking on sundry editorial chores in order to afford the monthly bills. When she found time to work on fiction, she’d often rush through drafts in a matter of days, before more immediately remunerative gigs interfered. She produced “Baby Love,” about a group of teen mothers living in rural New England, in less than two weeks, writing in a “white heat of excitement.” Reading the bleak, provocative book, one might sense that it was written in a hurry; the plot is cluttered with a few too many secondary characters and narrative coincidences.
That’s how The Bird Hotel felt to me, a plot “cluttered with a few too many secondary characters and narrative coincidences.” Maynard seemed to put effort into setting the place, but creating the people and the plot came across (to me) as slapdash.
Reading that New Yorker article left me more puzzled than ever. Why is or was she a literary sensation? I know that The Bird Hotel is my only exposure to Maynard, but other contemporary female authors we have read could write circles around her. Ann Patchett, for example. Maggie O’Farrell. Rachel Kadish.
I do appreciate that there are reasons to love The Bird Hotel and I respect @jerseysouthmomchess’s perspective, which I believe is shared by many. But the book just didn’t click for me.
@oldmom, thanks also for the NYT essay on the disrupted adoption. I thought the writer did a really good—and kind—job of trying to be balanced and understand both sides. There’s a section on the adoption in The New Yorker article:
Maynard “loses the crowd,” Flanagan writes, when she devotes a chapter to her wishful decision to adopt a pair of sisters from Africa, and her choice, a year later, to find them a new home. “When she describes meeting her future husband just six months later and having the time of her life with him,” Flanagan writes, the reader remains fixated on the plight of the girls.
The New Yorker article refers to, but does not show, a photograph of Maynard from 1972, when she was rocketing to literary stardom – a “fetching photograph that appeared on the front of the Times magazine, showing the young author sitting cross-legged on the floor of a Yale library.” I found it elsewhere:
I read this book just about a year ago, so it’s not fresh in my mind. I enjoyed the book, in spite of the way too many convenient coincidences. Of course Gus was going to turn out to be a bad guy; of course her mother was going to show up; of course the volcano was going to erupt. In other books that sort of thing really annoys me, but for whatever reason it didn’t in this one. 
I think @Marilyn said it well, “…at some point I thought to myself, this is just a fairy tale - forget about logic or common sense or incredible naivety. Just go with the flow.”
Thanks for the “Second Chances” article from The New Yorker, @oldmom4896. I still have my copy of Maynard’s memoir that came out of that New York Times profile from 1972, which I remember being very taken with at the time. And I used to read her syndicated column about parenting, too.
Mentioned in the New Yorker piece is this article of Maynard’s tying her experience with Salinger to the Me Too movement. It was much was less an affair than an abusive relationship on the part of Salinger.
I’m more bothered by the adoption story; she was an adult then.
As for the book, I guess it works as a magical fable, but that’s not really my thing, and the writing, many coincidences, and happily-ever-after ending didn’t grab me. Although the lovely descriptions did. Thanks for the links to the artist and the article on Casa Paloma, @SouthJerseyChessMom! It sounds like Maynard modeled Irene’s bus trip on her childhood family trip to Mexico.
@oldmom4896 I read your link about Maynard’s adoption disruption, and am curious what your thoughts about the section in the book regarding the parents who brought their adoptive daughter hoping to find her birth mother.
It didn’t go so well for that family.
19.Jerome Sapirstein travels to La Llorona simply to study birds. He becomes immediately entranced by Irene and wants her to travel and illustrate his book on birds, in addition to marrying him. They spend a day and night on the volcano. Sapirstein offers her a life filled with adventure and the possibility of children. She chooses to reject his offer. Why?
No chemistry. Irene knows it the minute they share a kiss. But I’d say she dodged a bullet – or more precisely, a love bomb.
Upon meeting her: “I know this sounds crazy…But I feel it’s destiny that I found you.”
After knowing her only a few hours:
“I think I should tell you, I have ulterior motives. Not that I didn’t mean everything I said about your talent as an artist. But I was wondering why there’s no man in your life. I guess I wanted to ask if the position might be available.”
And a few hours after that: “I hope you don’t mind…I just feel this overwhelming desire to take care of you.”
A short while later (despite getting very little encouragement from Irene): “I’d love to have a baby with you. Two, if we can.”
And finally, even after Irene gently rejects his advances, “I want to spend my life with you. You’re the most perfect woman I ever met.”
This is not romantic; it’s creepy. But Irene doesn’t seem to think so – and I don’t think Joyce Maynard thinks so, either. I could be wrong, but I think we’re supposed to view Jerome as sweet.
It’s not clear to me what charms Irene possesses that inspire such devotion – lifelong devotion, as it turns out. Years later, Jerome writes to her, “I probably shouldn’t say this next part…But it took a long time, getting over you.”
that was ridiculous for sure !
I guess you have to “kiss” a few frogs to find the prince ( fairytale analysis)
Adoption is so complicated! I have come to believe that given a closed adoption, the decision to search should always be with the adoptee (at least 18y.o.) and an actual search shouldn’t start until the adoptee has been educated about the universe of possible responses from the birth parent(s). And this education should include communications with adoptees who have searched (successfully or not) and birthparents as well.
As for the book I haven’t re-read that far and don’t recall. I will say that in the early 2000s, birthmothers, out of terrible poverty I am sure, got pregnant intentionally so they could receive money from adoption facilitators. A very nasty situation for sure, that did not include all international placements of Guatemalan infants and toddlers. That doesn’t preclude searching as described above.
As for Maynard’s failed adoption, I read a bunch of narratives, hers included. IMHO she was completely unprepared to adopt an older sibling group from Ethiopia.
I have a dear friend who adopted two girls from Ethiopia (one an abandoned 1-year-old and one who was 7 and continues to be in touch with her birth family there) at the same time. They are both healthy, educated, self-supporting adults now. I met them after they were in NYC for a couple of months and I continue to be friends with the whole family. Not the only family I’m acquainted with who adopted older kids internationally.
IMHO of course.
I wonder how Irene managed to make ends meet (after Leila’s money ran out) with only four hotel rooms. That seems exceptionally small, even for a tucked-away boutique hotel.
I have a friend who adopted 4 kids from China. (She’s a single caucasian MD and learned Chinese.) The kids all seem to be thriving. They just went on a 10 day trip to China. They are now all young adults—in college or recently done.
My sister adopted a 6.5 year old from Taiwan (he’s now in college) and my BIL adopted 2 toddlers from S Korea over 20 years ago. Another friend adopted a young toddler from Taiwan who is mid a young adult.
It can be a challenging time but I don’t know anyone who got another family to take their adopted kids.
Maynard mentioned this in her epilogue as a reason many publishers passed on this book. I didn’t find her views to be questionable , but as many remarked the plot , storyline itself seemed to have issues - perhaps why they passed ?
