{"product_id":"9780060931971","title":"Firebird : A Memoir","description":"\u003cstrong\u003eFirebird\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eAuthor(s): Mark Doty\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003e\"A beautifully written, hallucinatorily evocative memoir of growing up gay in baby-boom America.\"  — \u003cem\u003eNewsweek\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eIn his powerful autobiography, \u003cem\u003eFirebird,\u003c\/em\u003e Mark Doty tells the story of a ten-year-old in a top hat, cane, and red chiffon scarf, interrupted while belting out Judy Garland's \"Get Happy\" by his alarmed mother at the bedroom door, exclaiming, \"Son, you're a boy!\"\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eFirebird\u003c\/em\u003e presents us with a heroic little boy who has quite enough worries without discovering that his dawning sexuality is the Wrong One. A self-confessed \"chubby smart bookish sissy with glasses and a Southern accent,\" Doty grew up on the move, the family following his father's engineering work across America-from Tennessee to Arizona, Florida to California. A lyrical, heartbreaking comedy of one family's dissolution through the corrosive powers of alcohol, sorrow, and thwarted desire, \u003cem\u003eFirebird\u003c\/em\u003e is also a wry evocation of childhood's pleasures and terrors, a comic tour of American suburban life, and a testament to the transformative power of art.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eReview(s):\u003cbr\u003e\"With \u003cem\u003eFirebird\u003c\/em\u003e . . . Doty has written his most satisfying book . . . . [He] has elevated the story of his troubled family to the stature of myth, and in the process he has written an American classic.\"\u003cbr\u003e\"The poet's beautifully written, halucinatorily evocative memoir of growing up gay in baby-boom America.\"\u003cbr\u003e\"Doty writes with the characteristic Zen-calm you find also in his gorgeous poetry.\"\u003cbr\u003e\"It is not so much Doty's experiences that elevate \u003cem\u003eFirebird\u003c\/em\u003e. It is the extraordinary lilt of his words, each chosen with great care, which make even ordinary moments. . . become fresh and indelible.\"\u003cbr\u003e\"A lyrical, heartfelt and ultimately haunting account. . . . It is a pleasure to read a memoir that eschews the outsized dramas of recent confessional volumes. . . .\u003cem\u003eFirebird\u003c\/em\u003e convincingly evokes the isolation and cruelty of childhood, the potent blend of torment and pride experienced by those who sense, from an early age, that they are different.\"\u003cbr\u003e\"By the end of Mark Doty's exquisite memoir.\u003cem\u003e Firebird\u003c\/em\u003e, you'll have trouble believing you haven't read a brilliantly plotted novel by a master of fiction. But no made-up story could ever be as gripping as the one Doty tells, And few novelists could tell it this well.\"\u003cbr\u003e\"By turns lyrically comic and deeply sad.\"\u003cbr\u003e\"[Doty's] luminous portrait of the artist as a young man also illuminates the currents of his times, and contains a haunting family history. This is memoir at its best.\"\u003cbr\u003e\"Incandescent. . . .a lasting work of art.\"\u003cbr\u003e\"Supple, powerful reading. . . .[Doty] immerses his readers—at first in a leisurely manner, then with gathering intensity—in a gay coming of age complicated by complete family meltdown.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eISBN:  9780060931971\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e ","brand":"Harper Perennial","offers":[{"title":"Paperback \/ softback","offer_id":41019359035598,"sku":"9780060931971","price":13.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0600\/7029\/7806\/products\/9780060931971.jpg?v=1647483906","url":"https:\/\/pickwickbookshop.com\/products\/9780060931971","provider":"Pickwick Bookshop","version":"1.0","type":"link"}