The Last Dodo Bird

 

    By Edward Saroney III

Who is Sean Rousseau, and why do we care? Because believe me, by the end of this story, you will care about Sean Rousseau.

Going over the book in preparation for writing a review, the name "Rousseau" (especially when paired with "Sean," given that the Enlightenment philosopher's name was "Jean-Jacques Rousseau") stood out as a possible clue to our hero's nature. But in fact except for a similarity in both men's seeming belief in the essential goodness of humans, the elder Rousseau's relatively wild life, many loves, and various failed "careers" is about as far from Sean's story as it could be.

We meet Sean Rousseau shortly after his love, Mary, has passed away, suddenly and unexpectedly. We meet her daughters and families, and right away learn that Sean is very attentive to details, and is particularly effected by color. And that he is a Catholic with a special dedication to the Blessed Virgin, Mary.

Then we're swept back to the beginning, with Sean's birth and his family's buying a home in a western suburb of Syracuse, New York. That's right, Syracuse. And now readers from this city are going to get a little extra as they imagine his church, he grade school and high school, the parks where his sports teams played, the bars and restaurants he frequented in later years. 

But any reader will begin to develop a relationship with Sean, as we follow him through the death of his little sister, his growth spurt that rendered him several inches taller - and much more self-conscious - that his peers, his first tries at dating, and early loves. 

He maintains that love of color and detail and applies it to his many adventures in education, love, work, and a first marriage, which ends in a split that leaves Sean both lonely and wondering if he'll ever know happiness again.

Essentially, this is the story of a man, his life and times, his loves and losses, and his particular approach to a life explored, feared, engaged, and finally - in a way - offered.

In the last few chapters, the book takes an unexpected turn as Sean spends a couple of weeks in a small town he and Mary had visited and spent some special moments. He visits some landmarks, learns some of the local stories, discovers some ghosts, and meets a young woman with whom he develops an affectionate and slightly contentious relationship. 

Throughout the book, there are little hints of the veer into the supernatural the book takes in the last section. Sean's fascination with Fatima and the hellish visions of the children there, his strange rescue at the nadir of his life after he prays to the Blessed Virgin, and Sean and Mary's introduction to the odd little isolated town, The Hamlet of Misty Waters, all establish a little tie to something bigger than the ordinary life of a typical American man that is the stuff of the rest of the pages of the book.

An observation as the chapters moved along: there was no obvious purpose to following Sean's life so closely, getting to know his thoughts, preferences, ideas about color and clothing, food and fashion. Except that we do get to know the man, and care about him and what happens to him. That's not to say he is a perfect person - Sean has his flaws and makes mistakes and even, for this reader, occasionally deserved a scolding. But that makes him all the more "real" for the reader, and thus, as the surprise final encounter arrives, makes us care for what happens to him as if he were there before us in flesh and blood. 

The title, at least for this reader, remains enigmatic. A symbol for extinction, the Dodo was a large, flightless bird that was a victim in the 17th century to a changing world. Perhaps Sean, who began life in the 40s and was looking back over some 70 or more years of life in a changing world, will be the last of his kind? 

See what you think!