Jane seems obsessed with Silvina, and the taxidermied hummingbird that forms the first message form her, obsessed to the point of of researching Silvina's life and following her travels as set out in her journal. Whether she's motivated by insatiable curiosity, boredom with her middle-class, middle-aged life, or a desire to fill in gaps in her own history, was something I mused on right the way through this book.
But this is a thriller, and the Vilcapampas are not the only players here, VanderMeer weaving together a delightfully baffling and tense array of subplots as Jane attempts to discern the truth, find out if any of the actors here are potential allies, and solve the riddle that Silvina has set. They are not only rich but scary, responding to Jane's interest with guns, muscle and threats. The message is from Silvina Vilcapampa, a rebellious but recently deceased member of a South American family which has becomes rich, basically, from environmental destruction: mining, logging, trafficking in endangered species, you name it.
Notably she tells us much more about this, and in particular her experience with Shots - who seems to have beaten her and her brother, but also taught her to wrestle - than she does about that husband and daughter: as to the latter, it's really a series of missed opportunities and disengagement and indeed, a reckless attitude to whether what she's doing might get them into danger. As the story proceeds, Jane interrogates her past, matching up moments, memories and bits of her current experience with it. She also has a sense of detachment from all this - again, there are passing mentions of one-night stands while she's away at conferences ('Never knew the last names.') That detachment seems to be rooted in her distinctly strange childhood, growing up on a farm with an abusive grandfather ("Shot"), a feeble dad and a mother who had mental health issues. She has a safe, well-paid middle class job in the security industry. Jane has a husband and daughter, although we never learn their names.
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