Summary

Prologue – Ava Lavender is born on March 1, 1944, in Seattle, Washington. By many, she is considered everything from an angel to a monster. Ava considers herself just a girl, one who happens to have been born with wings. All the birds on Pinnacle Street, where Ava lives, gather around outside when she is born. Ava’s wings are declared a “slight physical abnormality” which, it is later learned, cannot be surgically removed, for her body and her wings are dependent upon one another. The novel about to be read is a history of Ava’s family and her young life, begun at the Seattle Public Library over a weekend in 1974, and completed in March, 2014.

Chapter 1 – Ava’s maternal grandmother is a woman named Emilienne Adou Solange Roux, born on March 1, 1904. Emilienne has four siblings, all born on March 1 in successive years. Rene is born...