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A Memoir
by Brian Buckbee
A charming and moving debut memoir about how a man with a mystery illness saves a pigeon, and how the pigeon saves the man.
On a spring evening in Montana, Brian Buckbee encounters an injured baby pigeon. Heartbroken after the loss of the love of his life and increasingly isolated by a mysterious illness that overtook him while trekking through Asia, Brian is unaware that this bird―who he names Two-Step―will change his life. Brian takes in Two-Step, and more injured birds, eventually transforming his home into a madcap bird rehabilitation and rescue center. As Brian and Two-Step grow closer, an unexpected kinship forms. But their paths won't converge forever: as Two-Step heals and finds love, Brian's condition worsens, and with his friend's release back into the world looming closer, Brian must decide where this story leaves him.
We Should All Be Birds follows Brian, unable to read or write due to a never-ending headache, as he dictates the end of his old life―as an adventurer, an iconoclastic university instructor, and endurance athlete―through his relationship with a pigeon that comes to define his present. Limited to dictation, Brian teams up with Carol Ann Fitzgerald, an editor who channels the details of his personal history to the pages. Raw and perceptive, delirious and devastating, We Should All Be Birds is an unflinching exploration of chronic illness, grief, connection, and the spectacular beauty of the natural world―and the humble pigeon. The surprising, heartwarming relationship between man and bird provides insight into what it means to love, to suffer, and to "never forget, even for a second, how big it all is."
"An extraordinary story full of humanity and life lessons from a man whose disability has largely removed him from society." —Kirkus Reviews (starred review)
"Though readers will likely sympathize with Buckbee's struggle against illness and emotional turmoil, the book's exploration of caregiving resonates more than its darker themes of loss. It's a mixed bag." —Publishers Weekly
This information about We Should All Be Birds was first featured
in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.
Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
Brian Buckbee lives in Missoula, Montana. He is co-founder of The 406 Writers' Workshop. His stories have appeared in The Sun, The Georgia Review, The Mid-American Review, Shenandoah, The Southern Review, and elsewhere.
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