Review: Kiss of the Jewel Bird by Dale Cramer

Like a hawk circling its prey, I eyed the writings of Dale Cramer for years with the intent to read them. Last year I took the plunge. I started with Cramer’s first novel, Sutter’s Cross. and continued until I completed his three-book “Daughters of Caleb Bender” series.

Richard “Dickie” Frye’s life changed on the scorching hot summer day when a white leghorn hen escaped from the cage located on the back of a truck headed to a slaughterhouse and eventually landed on the cooler sitting in the passenger seat of his Mazda. It changed again on a day several years later when Fletcher Carlyle found himself killing that same chicken outside of Central Park in a fit of rage.

Any Southern boy knows, if you’re gonna tell a lie you tell it big. – Richard Frye

It is Dr. Anton Kohl’s responsibility to determine if Fletcher Carlyle, winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature, is suffering from a nervous breakdown. The two meet and Carlyle shares his first big secret: He’s Richard Frye, a former mail carrier from Georgia. Encourage by Kohl, Frye tells the tale of how he became Fletcher Carlyle after meeting the chicken named Crito. Even though Kohl doubts Frye’s story, as the two become more comfortable with each other walls come down, a friendship is born, and each finds a kind of healing that would have been impossible without the other.

Kiss of the Jewel Bird is one part Southern literary fiction, one part fable, one part unrealized dreams, and one part unrequited love but is pure dynamite as a whole. Cramer creates characters who will be remembered long after the ending of the book and a book that merits re-reading in the future.

Rating: 5 Stars