Birds of Paradise

Diana Abu-Jaber’s novel Birds of Paradise (2011) follows a family in Miami at the onset of a hurricane that mirrors the internal struggle of each of the four protagonists. Avis and Brian Muir, the parents of neglected Stanley and beloved Felice, are still in turmoil five years after Felice decided to run away to live on the streets of Miami Beach. As the novel progresses, each member of the family is drawn toward chaos in order to find peace from past traumas and current pains. The novel is structured in chapters with alternating narrators, so each member of the four-person family tells their own version of events.

The book opens five years after 13-year-old Felice, the Muir's youngest daughter, runs away from home to live on the streets of Miami. Avis Muir, an acclaimed French pastry chef, and Brian Muir, a real estate development lawyer, are devastated when their daughter disappears, refusing to return home. The chaos of those years comes to a head as a hurricane swells off the coast of the city, and the years of inner turmoil, trauma, and lack of communication about their suffering catches up with each family member in a unique and troubling way.

For Avis, Felice's mother, work is the only solace she can find to distract from the pain of her daughter's choices. A pastry chef, she finds harmony and peace in the perfection of layers of beautifully light pastry, creams, chocolate, and more. Abu-Jaber describes these pastries in vivid detail; in many ways, Avis's obsession with her work, and the physicality of kneading dough, rolling butter, and dipping chocolate offers a kind of religious diversion from her pain. Of course, this diversion is only temporary, lost when her work is complete—when she is not working, Avis often neglects the other members of her family, especially her son, Stanley.



Brian Muir, a corporate lawyer working for a bigwig developer, feels he has failed as both a father and a husband. As the hurricane approaches, Brian makes a series of impulsive decisions, all of which he knows could ruin him and his family. He starts to flirt quite heavily with his Cuban co-worker, implying the beginning of an affair. He also considers investing in a shady real estate deal, brought to him by a client. If it failed, which it almost certainly would, Brian and the rest of the Muir family would be left with nothing.

Meanwhile, Stanley, the often-neglected older child of Brian and Avis, is fighting another kind of battle. After leaving home, Stanley opened a small food market on the south side of the city. Since the opening, it has been unexpectedly successful, and Stanley has found value in himself and his work in a way he never did at home, with his family obsessing over Felice. However, developers are threatening his business, and with the hurricane coming, Stanley feels his life's work is at stake.

Finally, Felice narrates her experience. Just about to turn 18, she has lived on the streets of Miami Beach for five years, since becoming a teenager. Felice is uninterested in returning home, in part, to punish herself for all she has done wrong. Felice's story is gritty, thrilling, and heart-breaking—she skateboards to find peace, sleeps on the beach, gets too drunk at parties, drops acid, gets into cars with strange, possibly dangerous men. Her life is all clubs and drinking and drugs, sleeping outside and finding freedom in a life without rules or regulations.



Ultimately, the story of this family comes together in conflict after years of silence—the brewing storm breaks over their home, and in that break, there is chaos, catastrophe, and perhaps, the possibility for healing.

Diana Abu-Jaber is a Jordanian-American author, educated in New York state and Canada. She has worked at Iowa State University, University of Oregon, and Portland State University as a professor of English and Creative Writing. Her books include Arabian Jazz, Crescent, Origin, and Birds of Paradise. She has also written two memoirs, both inspired by her time living in Jordan with her family as a child. She currently splits her time between Portland, Oregon and Miami.