Night Birds, the seventh novel of award-winning Winnipeg writer Margaret Sweatman, develops themes of innocence and knowledge, guilt and redemption, through the central character of Farrar, a metallurgist who learns that his beloved foundry is funded by laundered money. Set in the near future amid ongoing environmental collapse, the novel also reads as an indictment of humanity’s willful ignorance and complicity in the earth’s degradation.
In the prologue, heavy rainfall causes a breach in a Romanian mine’s toxic tailings pond, resulting in many deaths. Night Birds is told in five parts, and the chapters focus on either Farrar or Clio, his fashion designer wife. The couple’s relationship is shaky, as Clio has become suspicious of Farrar’s business dealings, but she complies when Farrar urges her to take their daughter, Sydney, to a “resort’ island managed by the mysterious Mark. The growing tension and estrangement in the marriage mirrors that of Farrar’s estrangement from himself.
Farrar’s character arc begins with his pure passion for metallurgy, an interest he shares with his father. A chance encounter with an older woman, Ella, leads both to the funding of Farrar’s Manitoba foundry and his marriage to Clio, the woman’s daughter. Farrar is willing to believe that Ella’s assistance is motivated only by the concept of “hawala,” an ancient trust-based system of money transfer. Ella, the wealthy owner of a Finnish mine, connects Farrar with Mark, who arranges the funds from an undisclosed source. The central tension of the novel is Farrar’s struggle with integrity as he gradually confronts his role in corruption. When he finally meets Peter Zugravi, the ruthless owner of the Romanian mine and the source of funds for Farrar’s foundry, Farrar is forced to acknowledge how he has been compromised: “[i]t was like discovering a room in his home that he hadn’t known was there” (127).
Complex character development of both Farrar and Mark is a strength of the book. Readers accompany Farrar in the close third-person point of view as his character develops, while we understand Mark only from his behaviour. Sweatman slowly and skillfully reveals Mark’s character, allowing readers’ curiosity about him to propel the novel forward.
The story arc is one of a figurative descent into hell and possible redemption. The thematic tension between knowledge and ignorance is developed through the mine as metaphor, whereby one extracts material better left alone. Clio remembers that, when she was a child, her mother, Ella, “liked to point out that the surface of the world that seemed so substantial to little girls was thin as eggshell. The power was all below” (196). Clio’s terror of the depths of the earth strengthens the metaphor. When Clio was a child, Ella took her to visit her mine, unintentionally causing her to suffer from ongoing anxiety into adulthood. An evil character in a favourite novel of one of the characters is “imprison[ed] […] in the dismal caverns of the mountain Damavend, where he’[d] stay until the end of the world” (178). The earth resists ownership; capitalist extraction has led to environmental collapse. Like Farrar and Mark, we live with the consequences of our damage to the environment, and Farrar’s willful ignorance about the source of his money mirrors our own disregard of the environment.
The earth functions as a character in the novel, and its multi-faceted role is compelling. When respected, the earth can be a comfort, such as the beauty of the area in which Farrar lives. Sweatman’s powers of sensory description create a vivid atmosphere, as in this passage when Farrar drives through the evening:
He loved the sound of his Alfa’s burly engine rumbling over his bridge, that soft squelch when he drove over the several boards thready with rot […] Brown velvet spires of bullrushes flickered between the limestone posts, then the tires rolled on to the dry purple gumbo of the oxbow and immediately there was a chatter of gravel, little stones flung up where Dowler had overfilled the potholes (64).
Zugravi’s corruption has ensnared a number of people, and the earth provides a haven in the form of an island, on which they hide from him.
A related theme is the redemptive power of art, whether the metallurgy of Farrar, his father, and Farrar’s tenant, Dowler; Clio’s fashion design; and the various artistic talents of those who have taken refuge on the island. Music represents an ideal, even a saviour, but Zugravi sullies Jay’s music when he manipulates his career through his corrupt investments. Constança, a woman traumatized by her involvement in Zugravi’s world, speaks in a whisper but has a powerful singing voice. The purity of art and its resistance to being owned stands in contrast to Farrar’s sports car, bought with a loan of dirty money. When Farrar questions Mark about the lack of a requirement for collateral, Mark replies, “’I hear you’ve married Ella’s daughter’” (103). Farrar realizes with unease that Clio is the collateral.
Although Farrar’s moral dilemma is a central source of tension in the novel, it is not revealed until a third of the way through the novel, which I found weakened the plot and caused my interest to flag until this point. Additionally, I found the symbolism seems heavy handed in some passages. For example, after Clio sits outside all night reflecting on her relationship with her father, the sun rises, dissipating the fog: “all was slowly revealed in the lush quiet” (208). Sweatman also sometimes explains or summarizes for readers what we have already gleaned for ourselves, such as in this sentence about dealing with Zugravi: “Zugravi’s game: easy to get in, and impossible to get out” (213). Finally, the many short chapters created a sense of disjointedness in the narrative and could benefit from some combination of longer scenes and smoother transitions, in my opinion.
I appreciate Sweatman’s grappling with themes of environmental collapse and personal integrity, her vivid powers of description and development of complex characters. Night Birds can be read as a cautionary tale. The earth, art, and our relationships with each other are precious gifts than can be destroyed by ownership, and they should be handled with care.
Night Birds
By Margaret Sweatman
Goose Lane Editions
February 2026, 342 p.p., $26 (paperback)
ISBN: 9781773104485
Janet Pollock Millar is a writer and educator living on lək̓ʷəŋən territory in Victoria, BC. Her work has appeared in publications including Herizons, Prairie Fire, Room, The Ex-Puritan, and The Malahat Review. She works in the Writing Centre at Camosun College. (janetpollock.ca)