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Featherhood: A Memoir of Two Fathers and a Magpie
by
85/99
Critics
58/99
Readers
n/a
Scholars
93/99
Rating
77/99
Volume
64/99
Rating
52/99
Volume
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About This Book
In this moving, critically acclaimed memoir, a young man saves a baby magpie as his estranged father is dying, only to find that caring for the mischievous bird saves him.One spring day, a baby magpie falls out of its nest and into Charlie Gilmour's hands. Magpies, he soon discovers, are as clever and mischievous as monkeys. They are also notorious thieves, and this one quickly steals his heart. By the time the creature develops shiny black feathers that inspire the name Benzene, Charlie and the bird have forged an unbreakable bond. While caring for Benzene, Charlie learns his biological father, an eccentric British poet named Heathcote Williams who vanished when Charlie was six months old, is ill. As he grapples with Heathcote's abandonment, Charlie comes across one of his poems, in which Heathcote describes how an impish young jackdaw fell from its nest and captured his affection. Over time, Benzene helps Charlie unravel his fears about repeating the past—and embrace the role of father himself. A bird falls, a father dies, a child is born. Featherhood is the unforgettable story of a love affair between a man and a bird. It is also a beautiful and affecting memoir about childhood and parenthood, captivity and freedom, grief and love.
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Reviews
"An abandoned baby bird helped this young British author finally exorcise the long shadow cast by his biological father, who abandoned him as an infant."
"Gilmour becomes fond of Benzene, whose flights fill his protector with mixed emotions ..."
"Featherhood is a book that swoops and soars with a luminosity of language worn with the lightness of a gossamer wing, a book filled with scenes of semi-hallucinogenic beauty in which an arrival in a forest carpeted with 'sweetly scented chamomile' causes footsteps to 'bruise aroma from the leaves' and where a magician's 'near-invisible spider-silk thread charms notes from thin air'."
"But Featherland is an equal, if not better, work of magpie investigation that ranks among the best modern coming-of-age memoirs."
"This spirited outing hits all the right buttons for memoir lovers."
"Eventually, the author gained perspective on the causes of his father's abandonment, and he assuaged his fears about his own mind: 'who your father is,' he realizes, 'isn't who you have to be.' Though not quite on that level, this one will fit nicely on the shelf next to H Is for Hawk."
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