How They Became Birds collects three short novels about growing up. In the title work, a man inherits a theme park from a woman who traumatized him there as a child, and who continues to haunt him as an adult. In 'Orogeny', a boy attempts to reconcile the inner and outer landscapes in his life, taking revenge on anyone standing in his way. The closing novella charts a teenager's destructive cross-continental flight from a brutal altercation with...