Description

‘One of the best books I have ever read. Incredibly moving’ Elton John

‘I cant recommend it too highly’ Helen Macdonald

‘Ranks among the best modern coming-of-age memoirs’ Sunday Times

‘Where Helen Macdonald’s H Is For Hawk meets Gerald Durrell’s My Family And Other Animals … Remarkable’ Daily Mail

‘Beautiful, wise, compassionate and powerful’ Isabella Tree

This is a story about birds and fathers.

About the young magpie that fell from its nest in a Bermondsey junkyard into Charlie Gilmour’s life – and swiftly changed it. Demanding worms around the clock, riffling through his wallet, sharing his baths and roosting in his hair…

About the jackdaw kept at a Cornish stately home by Heathcote Williams, anarchist, poet, magician, stealer of Christmas, and Charlie’s biological father who vanished from his life in the dead of night.

It is a story about repetition across generations and birds that run in the blood; about a terror of repeating the sins of the father and a desire to build a nest of one’s own.

It is a story about change – from wild to tame; from sanity to madness; from life to death to birth; from freedom to captivity and back again, via an insane asylum, a prison and a magpie’s nest.

And ultimately, it is the story of a love affair between a man and a magpie.

‘An incisive, funny and at times traumatic study of the damage done by destructive father-son relationships and the struggle to smash generational cycles’ Evening Standard

‘A personal reckoning which is simultaneously brutal and joyous. I was entranced’ Cathy Rentzenbrink

‘A beautiful book – it made me cry’ Simon Amstell

Publisher Review

A good time in a weird way - I have never read anything so filthy * Nell Zink, author of THE WALL CREEPER * [An] affecting and beautifully written memoir. * THE BOOKSELLER, Editor's Choice * A wonderful, moving book. His account of raising a young magpie offers a lovely insight into this fascinating bird * James Macdonald Lockhart, author of RAPTOR * Featherhood is an incisive, funny and at times traumatic study of the damage done by destructive father-son relationships and the struggle to smash generational cycles. -- David Marsland * EVENING STANDARD * A profound exploration of grief, fragmented families, nature versus nurture and whether we are doomed to repeat the sins of our fathers. But it is also a gladdening celebration of what it is to nurture and bring forth new love. -- Caroline Sanderson * SUNDAY EXPRESS S MAGAZINE * Utterly absorbing, astonishingly well-written, full of heart, Featherhood is the most arresting book I've read for a very long time * Cressida Connolly, author of AFTER THE PARTY * I loved Featherhood. About nature and growth, about belonging and not belonging, it is beautiful * Andrew O'Hagan, author of THE ILLUMINATIONS * The extraordinary story of an extraordinary family * Sophie Heawood, author of THE HANGOVER GAMES * This stunning memoir flashes with as many colours as its enchanting subject, and draws us into a world of eccentric characters impossible to predict or forget. Savage, mischievous, moving, sublime * Rhik Samadder, author of I NEVER SAID I LOVED YOU * A beautiful book, sensitive and compelling - it made me cry * Simon Amstell * What a book! I was entranced. A personal reckoning which is simultaneously brutal and joyous. It's full of light. I want to tell everyone about it * Cathy Rentzenbrink, author of THE LAST ACT OF LOVE * Beautiful, wise, compassionate and powerful, Featherhood is one of those rare, enchanted books that sings to the soul of what it is to be * Isabella Tree, author of WILDING * Wonderful - I can't recommend it too highly * Helen Macdonald, author of H IS FOR HAWK * The best piece of nature writing since H is for Hawk, and the most powerful work of biography I have read in years. It announces Charlie Gilmour as a major new writing talent * Neil Gaiman *