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Throughout The Bird That Sang in Color, Donna encourages her brother Vincent to live according to society’s conventions. She assumes that because he is single, childless, and works mostly menial jobs, he cannot possibly be happy. What she fails

When Donna first sees this picture, she wonders whether it represents how her brother Vincent envisioned his future self—an aging, philosopher-like figure—or whether it reveals the philosopher who had always lived inside him. The version of

In Chapter Four of The Bird That Sang in Color, Vincent tells Donna and Frank that the harp is the only instrument he has yet to learn. He repeats this quiet aspiration again in Chapter Eight, reinforcing the sense that the harp represents

The image above comes from the actual sketchbook that inspired me to write The Bird That Sang in Color. In fact, all of the drawings featured in this recent blog series originate from this same sketchbook, which served as a visual and emotional

Although Vincent plays a variety of instruments, his favorite is the guitar. When Donna sees this picture, she is flooded with memories of all the times he played for her, always accompanied by his favorite phrase: “I’ve been practicing.” Music