Shortlisted for Faulkner-Wisdom Novel Award,
Current status: seeking publisher

During the summer of 1980, in the near ghost town of Plauchéville Louisiana, eccentric Luther Livingston is diagnosed with a terminal illness, but waits months to tell his deeply Catholic wife of fifty years. When Ava finally learns the truth, she pressures him to receive the Sacraments. Then she invites her estranged older sister to visit for emotional support. But Marie is an ex-flapper turned closeted New Orleans lesbian, and the visit forces she and Luther to remember an ancient secret. During Luther's last days, Marie struggles to confront her past, and Ava is shocked by her husband's last wishes. Luther stargazes and pops pills, embracing the side effects of his morphine. He drifts further and further from his body, reliving his most potent memories, hallucinating amusing conversations with a chain-smoking Death, and floating out the window through the stars.

Told from the vantage points of these three characters, SONG OF BLACKBIRDS is the surreal chronicle of the last days of Luther Livingston and his effect, in life and in death, on the people he loved. Compared by advance readers to Cunningham's A HOME AT THE END OF THE WORLD and Ball's critically-acclaimed TV series, SIX FEET UNDER, the novel is both the story of a 50-year marriage and the secrets that threatened it, and a meditation on the inevitable turmoil we feel when we, or our loved ones, are faced with our demise.