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Bird on a Wire: A Review of Jane Schwartz's Caught

These observations, made by Jane Schwartz in her paper on pigeon-flying published in Folklife Annual (1988), are the basis of Caught (NY: BaIlantine, 1985), her novel about a ten-year-old girl who becomes an avid "chaser," or apprentice pigeon-flyer. While the narrative is full of keenly observed details about the folklore of this vanishing New York pastime, Caught is also a perceptive treatment of the gender issues which complicate relationships in general and growing up in particular. CaughtÂ—a title which yields a number of different meanings in the novelÂ—centers around Louie, a bright and determined child. As the book opens, Louie is already involved in the sport, helping her brother Frankie and his pal Michael get revenge on an unsporting player. While the deed nearly costs Louie her life, it also gains her the attention of Casey, a 38year-old pigeon-flyer, who soon recruits her as his chaser. Louie's apprenticeship is a hands-on training in urban folklore, which exposes her to turf wars between the flyers, the ethnic tensions between them, and the many perils which stalk working-class life. Pigeon-flying grips Louie's imagination more than any other pastime Â—including school Â—and Schwartz's narrative is punctuated with lyrical vignettes of swirling, cooing, whirling birds. Schwartz is straightforward in her treatment of sex and gender. Sex is instinctual, haunting, and compelling. Louie experiences this for herself when she discovers Casey asleep on the roof: "I had never watched anyone asleep before. There was an intimacy about it that was new and vaguely exciting to me." Schwartz is much to be admired for her courage and her decorum in permitting Louie her feelings for Casey; and Casey's awareness of her could well be used as a text in any discussion of sexuality and its abuses. For all the tacit acknowledgment of erotic possibilities,