Nora Martin
Flight of the Fisherbird.
Bloomsbury, 2003.

Flight of the Fisherbird is set on the San Juan Islands off the Washington coast in 1889, a time when prejudice against Chinese immigrants was at an all-time high. Following a period when Chinese laborers filled the canneries and flocked to other bottom-rung employment opportunities in the Pacific Northwest, the Exclusion Act banned the entry of Chinese people into the country. This law trapped individuals outside the United States who had already established a home here--people who were visiting family in China, or who had left the country for other reasons. As a consequence, a rash of smuggling, both of reentering immigrants and determined new arrivals ensued.

Nora Martin has chosen this dramatic, historically significant backdrop for a novel about the smuggling--and casual murder--of Chinese immigrants and a girl's courage as she discovers the crime and takes action to bring the perpetrator to justice.

Emptying her family's crab traps in heavy fog, thirteen-year-old Clementine is puzzled to hear sudden commotion and the sound of heavy objects being thrown overboard from a boat that is familiar to her. Puzzlement shifts into horror when she rescues a nearly drowned Chinese man in a burlap sack, realizing that his was one of the three splashes she heard.

The fact that the perpetrator turns out to be her own uncle, in many ways beloved even when she comes to see his darker side, makes Clem's challenge greater. But there is a satisfying logic in the fact that Uncle Doran taught Clem how to sail, and it is through skillfully managing her family's dory, the Fisherbird, that she is able to elude him, carry the surviving Tong-Ling to safety, and bring the law down on Doran and his partner.

Flight of the Fisherbird weaves several narrative threads, each intriguing in its own right: Clem's discovery of her uncle's crime, and her protection of Tong-Ling; her desire for an education (and resistance to following a more traditional female path); her growing friendship with Jed, the boy who becomes her partner in seeking justice; tensions between Clem and the orphaned Sarah, who gradually evolves from nemesis into sister; and Clem's aspiration to be a writer. With paper in short supply, Clem writes on anything she can find, from can labels to the bark of the madrone tree. Short lists of her observations start each chapter--lists that feel a bit forced, perhaps from wanting too badly to be poems.

Martin's prose is at times heavy-handed, which is disappointing, because this is a good book that could have been a great one. The subject matter is so forceful, it hardly needs boosting, and the setting--the foggy ocean, sailboats sneaking around the islands--is fine and atmospheric. Still, the story is memorable, and the slice of history it conveys is worth remembering.

Martha David Beck
Summer 2003