The Bird Woman

A phone call summons 36-year-old Southern Irish Catholic Ellen McKinnon to her estranged and dying mother's bedside in Derry, North Ireland. The phone call sends Ellen on a brief and darkly nostalgic trip that provides a thumbnail sketch of her past: an abusive first husband (now dead); a stillborn child; her clairvoyant "seeing" that landed her in a Belfast mental hospital; her initial encounter with Liam, who later becomes her second husband. The narrative follows their relationship, as sculptor Liam struggles to make a name for himself in the art world and Ellen's clairvoyance transforms into the power to heal the sick. At Liam's insistence, and with the encouragement of her friend Catherine, a former nun, Ellen begins working as a healer, forcing her to come to terms with her new role in the community and confront the prejudices (both her own and others') that separate northerners from southerners.