Julian Gallo

The Penguin and the Bird Julian Gallo

New York City, 1979. Nadja - a new immigrant from Poland, thirty years old, recently divorced, and down to her last dollar - wonders how she's going to make ends meet and care for her children. He is a thirteen year old boy, sitting alone in his bedroom listening to The Kinks, trying to draw comic books, write short stories, and noodles on his guitar as he broods over an unrequited love. Ten years later their paths cross and an unlikely relationship begins to flourish. Sixteen years her junior, the narrator tries to make sense of the situation he now finds himself in, falling in love with a much older woman. Meanwhile Nadja is coping with the difficulties in her life - her divorce, her growing children, her abject poverty, her failed relationships, her memories of communist Poland - and now she has another issue to deal with: a man sixteen years her junior who is seemingly falling in love with her. Her conflicted feelings over him only complicates matters even more. Sometimes the heart wants what it wants. This odd love story, based on an obscure folk tale, mirrors the situation they now both find themselves, with no clear answers, no clear meaning to any of it.