Alice Miller's debut novel, More Miracle than Bird, is a sweeping historical drama that provides a nuanced twist on the literary love story. At 21, Georgie Hyde-Lees meets W.B. Yeats, an already established poet twice her age. Soon after, Georgie receives an invitation to join the Order, a secret society dedicated to the academic study of the occult. While by day Georgie works as a nurse in a hospital for wounded World War I soldiers, by night she attends robed meetings, scours ancient tomes and exchanges fervent letters with Yeats, whom she believes she could marry. But as the war drags on and Yeats's imperfections surface, Georgie must take a closer look at what it would mean to be the wife of a famous man.
More Miracle than Bird stands out as a pristine, thoughtful re-imagining of the personal lives of true literary greats. With prose that delivers both cinematic images and keen insights, the novel unfolds in a calm and clear-eyed fashion that evokes its intelligent, no-nonsense protagonist. Rather than painting Georgie and Yeats as idealized romantic leads, Miller handles her characters with honesty and humanity, dexterously navigating the complexities of their flaws. Even the mystical elements of Georgie's story--her study of the occult, her visits to a medium--illustrate the human impulses at the center of the unknown. Ultimately, Georgie's journey is an exploration of how she, like many others, deceives herself simply because "she wanted something bigger than this small, pitiful man, who insisted on making her listen to him." --Alice Martin, freelance writer and editor