“Werner looks at the blue of the walls and thinks of Birds of America, yellow-crowned heron, Kentucky warbler, scarlet tanager, bird after glorious bird, and Frederick’s gaze remains stuck in some terrible middle ground, each eye a stagnant pool into which Werner cannot bear to look. Relapse In late June 1942, for the first time since her fever, Madame Manec is not in the kitchen when Marie-Laure wakes.”

“Werner looks at the blue of the walls and thinks of Birds of America, yellow-crowned heron, Kentucky warbler, scarlet tanager, bird after glorious bird, and Frederick’s gaze remains stuck in some terrible middle ground, each eye a stagnant pool into which Werner cannot bear to look. Relapse In late June 1942, for the first time since her fever, Madame Manec is not in the kitchen when Marie-Laure wakes.”

— Anthony Doerr