Honoring The 100-Year-Anniversary Of The
Extinction Of The Passenger Pigeon --- 2014
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Quick Fall Of Light
A Novel By Sherrida Woodley
In this suspenseful
tale a global virus
sets the tone, but
it's a one-pound
bird that
determines who
lives and who
doesn't.
In this novel of a near-future pandemic, the time has come when
humanity is enduring one of the worst devastations imaginable. Yet,
Quick Fall of Light looks less at the worldwide outbreak of bird flu
than it does at the lives of three people caught in its wake.
The story begins with Josephine Russo searching for the crash site of her newly deceased husband in the mist-shrouded Olympic Rain Forest of Washington State. As she finds herself lost and getting sick, she meets a logger, Gary Sterns, who not only has a history of logging, but who has also discovered a medical lab hidden deep within the forest’s interior. From this mysterious realm the story reveals an experiment unknown, except for traces left behind on a computer and Josephine’s remembrances of the fading love between herself and her late husband. And it is from this experiment that a bird, at one time one of America’s most breathtaking, emerges as a source of radically advanced medical technology.
Quick Fall of Light has its roots in the great influenza epidemic of 1918. Based, in part, on the reported mysterious “grippe” that spread around the globe early in the last century, the novel tells of a world largely stunned by a similar modern tragedy, withdrawn, sequestered, and desperate for the availability of an anti-virus, Pass-Flu. The business of manufacturing the drug is a thriving one despite the staggering loss of human life, and no one questions its efficiency until Josephine reads the confession her husband left behind on his computer. . .
That as leading ornithologist for the pharmaceutical, Colzer-Bremen, he had personally witnessed the deadly exploitation of his birds for the sake of production and that he considered the drug as dangerous as the disease. In one final act of retribution he planned to release the bird most likely to survive, a passenger pigeon named Gem-X. It is, without a doubt, his dying hope that the bird will not only survive, but triumph over mankind and the dreaded outbreak that’s wiped out millions of birds as well. This is what takes the story well beyond the rain forest, and into the sites of a hitman who pursues Josephine and Sterns and the elusive Gem-X through the wilderness of Montana, a dying town in Wyoming, and a plains fire as big as any our nation has ever seen.
Oddly enough, the novel is neither dark nor apocalyptic. Rather, it centers on a time of turmoil, looking at nature not as a way out but as a remnant of our past that will always see us through. Quick Fall of Light tells of a time yet to come and yet brings us face to face with our past. We can only hope what it describes never comes to be.
The story begins with Josephine Russo searching for the crash site of her newly deceased husband in the mist-shrouded Olympic Rain Forest of Washington State. As she finds herself lost and getting sick, she meets a logger, Gary Sterns, who not only has a history of logging, but who has also discovered a medical lab hidden deep within the forest’s interior. From this mysterious realm the story reveals an experiment unknown, except for traces left behind on a computer and Josephine’s remembrances of the fading love between herself and her late husband. And it is from this experiment that a bird, at one time one of America’s most breathtaking, emerges as a source of radically advanced medical technology.
Quick Fall of Light has its roots in the great influenza epidemic of 1918. Based, in part, on the reported mysterious “grippe” that spread around the globe early in the last century, the novel tells of a world largely stunned by a similar modern tragedy, withdrawn, sequestered, and desperate for the availability of an anti-virus, Pass-Flu. The business of manufacturing the drug is a thriving one despite the staggering loss of human life, and no one questions its efficiency until Josephine reads the confession her husband left behind on his computer. . .
That as leading ornithologist for the pharmaceutical, Colzer-Bremen, he had personally witnessed the deadly exploitation of his birds for the sake of production and that he considered the drug as dangerous as the disease. In one final act of retribution he planned to release the bird most likely to survive, a passenger pigeon named Gem-X. It is, without a doubt, his dying hope that the bird will not only survive, but triumph over mankind and the dreaded outbreak that’s wiped out millions of birds as well. This is what takes the story well beyond the rain forest, and into the sites of a hitman who pursues Josephine and Sterns and the elusive Gem-X through the wilderness of Montana, a dying town in Wyoming, and a plains fire as big as any our nation has ever seen.
Oddly enough, the novel is neither dark nor apocalyptic. Rather, it centers on a time of turmoil, looking at nature not as a way out but as a remnant of our past that will always see us through. Quick Fall of Light tells of a time yet to come and yet brings us face to face with our past. We can only hope what it describes never comes to be.
Audubon Observing The Passenger Pigeon
By Norman Rockwell
Our Friends
"This book has everything! Great characters, vivid language,
a shocking resurrection, and birds. I loved it!"
Sy Montgomery, Author of Birdology
Sy Montgomery, Author of Birdology
"A profound, and profoundly affecting novel. I don't think anybody could read it without being deeply
touched. I was. I found it hard to resist--the ideas, the writing, the passion, the message. All resonated
for me. A wonderful reading experience. . . I think anyone who picks up this book will be changed by it."
Jeffrey Moussaieff Masson, Ph.D., Author of When Elephants Weep and Dogs Never Lie About Love