Nest is the debut work by author Esther Ehrlich, and it is a touching, tender piece of children’s fiction. Sixth grader Naomi “Chirp” Orenstein lives on cozy Cape Cod with her family – Mom, Dad, older sister, Rachel – and always has. And she has no idea just how many things in her comfortable life are about to change, when her mom falls ill and things start unraveling. The book is split into two halves – The first half of the book is set in the fall of 1972 – literally (as in autumn,fall)- and figuratively, when Chirp’s mom gets her diagnosis and everything falls to pieces around them. In the second half, her mom comes home after treatment, the following spring, and then things take a turn for the even worse and I spoil the whole book for you if I say anything else. Which I’m going to try really hard not to do.
Instead, I’m going to tell you how Chirp reminds me a little bit of To Kill A Mockingbird‘s Scout – cool nickname, exact right friend for her circumstances, a wisdom that makes her seem more mature than she really is, a naive innocence that makes her seem younger. That’s not the only literary character Chirp shares some commonalities with, either – she happens to be reading The Secret Garden over the course of the book, and her choosing Dickon, the gardener who’s seems part fairy or wood-sprite he’s so in-tune with nature, is not coincidental on the author’s part: Chirp’s connection to the birds of Cape Cod, to the cycles of nature in her beloved salt marsh, to the way the wind whistles and the trees grow, is as much a part of her character as being ‘wick’ was part of Dickon’s.
One of the main issues at play in the novel is that, at 11, Chirp isn’t old enough to understand everything, and she’s too old not to understand enough to be really worried, and that’s a hard age to be. It’s a hard age to be, when there isn’t a medical crisis in your family, or when your dad isn’t a shrink who always wants to talk about your feelings. It’s a hard age to be when your big sister suddenly stops being your best friend, because she’s too old to go trick or treating anymore, and your questions are suddenly too much and too innocent for her, and you don’t know what has changed or why or how to make it stop. ” Things can happen, and things did happen, and things are still happening!” Chirp breaks down crying, and yells at her sister during a fight.
And you start to notice how often Chirp talks about hiding out, about running away, about pretending to be something she’s not, somewhere she’s not: That’s not a feeling that goes away when you stop being eleven. That’s not a feeling people grow out of, I don’t think. That’s a universal experience, and the author reminds us that kids – for all people think their lives are carefree and full of fun – are part of that universe too.
She manages to portray, quite clearly, how the meaning of home can shift so swiftly, that you’re left stumbling. “I know that I should knock on Mom and Dad’s bedroom door and say I’m home, safe and sound.” Chirp thinks, early on, “But I don’t feel safe, and I’m not sure what sound means. Somehow I bet I’m not feeling that either.”
Ehrlich’s ability to capture how overwhelming this feels, and how children can process this – by trying to make themselves the epi-center of control, by trying to relate unrelated things together – is heartbreaking: “If I can take off my skirt, turtleneck, tights and shoes before I count to fifteen, everything will be okay. If I can toss my clothes into the hamper without having anything fall on the floor, everything will be okay. Okay.” Later on, when things get too overwhelming, Chirp deconstructs her entire room, creating a literal nest out of her belongings, and refuses to leave it: if she can only stay in her nest, she will be safe, the bad things will disappear, she will not have to deal with them.
The way that Chirp’s mother’s illnesses are addressed in the book has both its positives and negatives – and most of those negatives are just native to the time period of the book, and are clearly not the perspective of the author so much as the words she has to write to accurately populate the world she has created. Hence the tropey-ness of “God only gives us what we can handle” neighbors or Chirp and her sister referring to McLean hospital as the madhouse, and insisting that their mother doesn’t belong there with all the ‘nut-jobs.’ Mostly, we just see how overwhelming these diseases are, how insidious they feel, how invasive and corrosive.
Ehrlich also seems to understand that there are times when nearly everything is going wrong and only one tiny thing is going right, and you hold on so tight to that one tiny thing that you might break it, you might shatter it, and it’s too precious to lose, and that’s how Chirp and Joey become friends. Joey, the odd-mannered boy across the street, with the abusive family that nobody ever acknowledges, who somehow understands Chirp’s new realities in a way she never would have predicted, takes the time to just exist with Chirp in her new world. To listen and let her talk. To let her listen. To be silent, together. To share secrets. To make plans. The author does a really good job of building on that feeling of “If I keep my eyes closed, maybe nothing will change.” Even if you want the bad things to change, but can’t afford to let that happen because it might mean that you destroy what little good you have, in the process.
All in all, it’s a book that’s rich – in its relationships, in its language, in its meanings – the kind of book an English teacher would love to get her hands on and tease apart, show you how to put it back together. Part of me wants to say “No way is this book acceptable for middle grade readers,” but that’s the part of me that forgets how hard being 12 really is. That thinks they’re still innocent enough to protect from hard facts of life, as if some of their mothers/fathers/sisters/selves aren’t ill/spoiler for the story right this minute, and reading about a character who is dealing with that might help them out, rather than hurt them. I know that part of me is wrong, even as I think it, even as I type it.
This isn’t an easy book to read, but it is a great one: a soaring one. Chirp’s experience isn’t one you’d wish on anybody, and reading through it isn’t a joyful, laugh-a-minute riot, but it’s still valuable. It’s still amazing.
(Obtained my copy through NetGalley)