This was simply outstanding. The language is just so beautiful! Usually when I come across language like this, I always feel slightly despairing that I'll never be able to write this beautifully myself, but the truth is I was so besotted by the prose that jealousy didn't even get a look in. Macdonald's writing is just glorious, and the narrative itself is a complex and many-layered thing. It covers the period immediately following her father's sudden death, when in an attempt to refuse the reality of mourning she takes on the training of a goshawk. This isn't as random as it sounds - Macdonald has been mad on raptors since childhood, and was certainly no novice when Mabel came along. Woven throughout the development of their relationship, however, is that of T.H. White and his goshawk, which had a far less positive result. White wrote a foundational text on the subject of training hawks, although it apparently covers more not what to do than the reverse, as he was for the most part a failure (with his goshawk at least).

It's a sad and hopeful and immensely sympathetic memoir. I've been reading a library copy, but I'm going to have to insist on getting my own, because it's just that good.