Border Songs - Jim Lynch

A beautiful, kind and quirky celebration of difference and human connections that acknowledges Andy Goldsworthy's art and Temple Grandin's books as inspirations. The book is set on the US / Canadian border, with the central character (Brandon, a 6'8" dyslexic with a talent for ephemeral art and communicating with animals) joining the border patrol with unexpected effects for the local dairy farming community and the Canadian cannabis smugglers he is pitted against. "Hobbies", when pursued passionately, seem to have redemptive power for many of the characters in this book - Brandon creates art, his father builds a boat, and another man works on "re-inventions", reproducing the failed experiments that led to Edison's creation of the light bulb in order to share the excitement of seeing the first one working. Characters who struggle with impairments also seem to be granted unusual insights as they perceive situations more clearly - as well as the obvious theme of Brandon's talent for noticing the unusual, his mother (struggling with the onset of dementia) is the only one who takes time to really listen to the enigmatic oral historian Sophie, who most people only see through the filter of their own fantasies.