But the old man is not the only one suffering, nor are his the only demons that need to be put to rest. Past, present, and a tenuous future all swirl around Deb and her efforts to bring comfort and closure to Professor Reed as his body slowly succumbs to his disease.

Instead, it exposed major weaknesses in the United States’ domestic land defenses and fissures in the military chain of command. The bombs fell in the forests of Oregon, in an attempt to create a massive forest fire and evoke chaos. The Hummingbird is also the story of pilot Ichiro Songa, who, in 1942, launches his E14 aircraft from the deck of the Japanese fleet’s I-25 submarine, becoming the only enemy pilot to ever fly over and drop bombs on American soil. Which doesn’t mean working with Barclay Reed, PhD, is going to be easy. I do it to remind myself that I receive something meaningful from every person. Because I sweep my thumb down the back of that bird before each new patient, and not for good luck. For never giving up.” As the wooden hummingbird on her desk (carved for her by a patient with end-stage emphysema) reminds her, “every patient, no matter how sick or impoverished, gives lasting gifts to the person entrusted with his care.” Barclay Reed, at his private Lake Oswego address, was going to be more than a mere handful, apparently.īut Deborah Birch RN MSW is “known for sticking. Deb has been the third nurse assigned to him in 12 days, and this after he had already rejected the care of the other two home-health agencies in the area. He is 78 years old, with no declared family, in the last stages of kidney cancer. She also is married – no kids – to an auto repair shop owner and National Guard veteran who, after three tours of duty in Iraq (two in the motor pool, the last as a sniper) suffers from severe PTSD and paranoia, with anxiety and anger management issues.ĭeb’s latest client is a cantankerous tenured University professor, a nationally recognized expert on WWII.

She is an experienced and compassionate hospice nurse, caring for the terminally ill and dying. She is no sharp tongued dilettante nor sharp eyed detective, no struggling artist confronting her past nor wide eyed twixter dipping a toe into her future. Kiernan’s novel, The Hummingbird, must not have been an easy character to write. Kiernan William Morrow Release Date: SeptemISBN 978-0-06-236954-3ĭeborah Birch, the heroine of Stephen P.

The hummingbird by stephen p kiernan