Margret Snow is the quintessential New York woman.ï¾ She dresses the windows of Saks Fifth Avenue by day and mingles in the downtown art world by night, always searching for her niche in a city intent on capturing Theï¾ Next Big Thing as it flies into view.ï¾ Married to Charles, a professor at Columbia, and living on the Upper West Side, the backdrop to Margret’s life is made up of the poetic rhythms and colors of the Manhattan day: slow-running buses, the gray morning light striking the Hudson,ï¾ the winter landscape of Riversideï¾ Park, the endless round of gallery openings, cocktail parties and grand dinners in the palatial apartments on Manhattan’s upper east side. ï¾ Against this metropolitan whirl, Margret and Charles pursue a lifelong hobby of bird watching, a passion for which was kindled by her grandfatherï¾ during long-past summers near the shore in Gloucester, Massachusetts.ï¾ As theyï¾ shuttle between their Manhattan apartment, birding in the city's parks,ï¾ andï¾ weekends out of town in theirï¾ house near Cape May, aï¾ violent upheaval pushes Margret beyond theï¾ boundaries of her hobby.ï¾ Overnight, she becomesï¾ an art world sensation and just as suddenly has fame ripped from her.ï¾ ï¾ As Laura Jacobs proved in her first novel, "Women About Town," she understands theï¾ natural habitatï¾ of the New York Woman in all its complexity.ï¾ Inï¾ The Bird Catcher, her second,ï¾ she moves deeper into that territory with the story of a remarkable woman who is as rare and special as the birds that fill the skies above her.
