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Top of the pile
80
/100
I Index Overall Rating
Readers
65/100Critics
94/100Scholars
Author:
Charlie Gilmour
Publisher:
Scribner
Date:
January 5, 2021
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. A bird falls, a father dies, a child is born. Featherhood is the story of a love affair between a man and a bird. It is also a memoir about childhood and parenthood, captivity and freedom, grief and love.
What The Reviewers Say
... a sincere and searing tale of loss, addictive despair, the redemptive power of love, the natural world and a shit-dropping, feather-moulting talking magpie.
... engrossing.
... a magical book of exhilarating complexity, the story of blood, bird shit, tears and hope.
In folklore, magpies are said to bring bad luck, but that certainly wasn’t the case for Charlie Gilmour. 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’s remarkable memoir, Featherhood: A Memoir of Two Fathers and a Magpie, explains in lively, compelling detail how caring for this bird prepared him to become a father himself. With razor-sharp wit and storytelling, Gilmour interweaves the story of this bird, whom he and his partner named Benzene, with that of his past.
