This is the author’s story of taking in an abandoned baby magpie chick that was found in a scrap yard and raising it along with his partner, who pretty early on in the book becomes his wife. The period of time the book covers spans about two years, but there are also a lot of flashbacks into earlier times in the author's life, specifically as they relate to his biological father.

Charlie Gilmour is the adopted son of Pink Floyd guitarist David Gilmour, but his biological father was the British writer Heathcote Williams. When he was just a baby, Gilmour and his mother, the author Polly Samson were abandoned by Heathcote. David Gilmour came into their lives not long after and adopted the author when he was just a toddler, but the whole father question nagged at him for the majority of his young life.

The time that this book covers is pretty much when all of these family issues came to a head for the author: he was sort of back in touch with his biological father, but it was a very fraught relationship. He was trying to shake the feeling that somehow the ability to be a father just wasn’t in his DNA given his experience with his own father, while his partner wanted to get married and start a family - and he’s doing all of this while - or possibly because of this little bird that he was raising.

Now, this is definitely not the first book of its kind - there are lots of books out there that tell the stories of humans taking in abandoned animals and raising them and I know that people have some very legitimate concerns about lay people taking in animals when they aren’t wildlife experts, and in turn having issues with books that seem to be promoting it. I hear those concerns, and in a lot of ways I share those concerns. That being said, people taking in animals who would have died otherwise and raising them themselves is something that happens, it’s not something I would recommend anyone to do, but it doesn’t always have a negative outcome. This is one of those cases.

I absolutely loved hearing about how they raised this bird - what all they fed it, how its looks transitioned as it became an adult bird, and how much havoc it wreaked on their household. It’s definitely not a rose-colored glasses interpretation of this experience, because he’s brutally honest about how much of a challenge it was to have a magpie in the house. He’s also brutally honest, not just about his past, but about the emotional journey he went through during this time. For anyone who’s had a fractured relationship as a parent, especially growing up, you’ll know that the absence of that parent forever looms in your life - it’s a question mark instead of the ideal period at the end of a sentence and unless it’s looked right in the eye, it can really eat at you.

And in the sections where he’s looking back at his past, he can pretty much pinpoint where his issues came from - you can tell he has a lot of perspective now and did during the period of writing this and you’ll know why when you get to the end of the book. He made a lot of mistakes in his past, one of which landed him in prison for a short period, which he discusses. In short, he GOES there and the book is so much more powerful because of that. Not only does it feel like the author really committed to writing this memoir, but his writing is absolutely incredible. On a sentence-by-sentence level, it knocked my socks off, but now having finished it, I can see that the work as a whole was so completely through and composed with intention.

Everything in the book feels really intentional, actually, down to his very level choice of words. He’s a big fan of the bird-themed imagery and caches it throughout the book, even beginning with the title, which is obviously a take on fatherhood, but refers to his time raising this bird, his prelude to fatherhood. It really was an important time in his life and the bird had a lot to do with it. He talks about how much raising this bird opened his eyes - to what it’s like to give yourself over to the care of another creature, to the demons in his own past, and to the natural world in general. There are several times in this book when he just marvels at how much he didn’t consider birds before raising this one and now he’s laser focused on them when he leaves the house.

This book is smart, it’s funny, and it’s heartfelt. It’s raw and honest and completely absorbing. I cannot recommend it highly enough, especially if you like bird books, specifically H is for Hawk or Saving Jemima. I loved this book beyond measure. I would be shocked if this book doesn’t end up in my top nonfiction books of the year list.

This one is a good one. Instead of reading about a story of fatherhood, we read the author's tale of a young magpie, and its care by humans. People who begin to love, but also have a little bit of resentment, that I imagine parents often feel. It's told very eloquently. It's told in a way that makes. you consider the magpie as an actual child with needs and demands. And at times I was even riveted to know what exactly this feral creature would do. Animals and humans alike can bond for life.

5/5 Stars

i really enjoyed this way of telling a memoir, I loved the relationship between Charlie and Benzene and going on their journey.

“Featherhood” is one of those books that hits completely different emotions in the actual reading that anticipated upon beginning. What I took as most likely being a light hearted tale of an abandoned magpie that someone takes care of quickly transformed into an incredibly personal memoir about a wayward man in the wake of a prison sentence in search of answers about his absent father, with the backdrop of his care for the mischievous Benzene.

Featherhood is a sometimes intense and poetic search for self-affirmation and answers to a question that often can never be fully explained: why has my parent left me, and what does that say about me as a person? Gilmour uses his experience raising the baby magpie Benzene to ruminate on his own ability at parenthood as he and his partner consider having a child. While it does not make for easy reading, Gilmour is honest in the portrayal of himself and his transgressions, as well as his portrayal of his absent and mentally ill father Heathcote. Such introspection ultimately makes for a satisfying conclusion, as Gilmour learns from Benzene and has grown exponentially by the memoir’s end, once again proving the endless capacity to learn from our animal companions.

**Thanks to Netgalley and Scribner for the ARC for an honest review**

This book checked off all the boxes of things I look for in great books. First of all, it's a memoir, my favorite genre, and the author is an interesting, complex individual whose writing is so good that he draws you into his life experience effortlessly. His writing style feels natural and relaxed and doesn't draw attention to itself, yet when you go back and re-read passages you discover how spare it is; extra words have no place here -- they would just get in the way.

The author simultaneously tells three stories: the impact of his father's absence in his life (a couple of months after the author was born, his father abandoned mother and child); secondly, his experience of raising a nestling magpie and living with her for four years (magpies are related to crows, ravens and jackdaws-- a particularly intelligent group of birds with strong personalities). This had special resonance because his father had raised a jackdaw as a young man. And third, the story of his current relationship with his girlfriend, later his wife, who is ready to have a child while he is, understandably. conflicted.

His father is a writer whose mental health is unstable. The author suspects the same is true of himself, having been through major ups and downs. In the course of the book he establishes a relationship with his father, after multiple failed attempts, and as he gets to know him he recognizes his father's limited ability to connect with others. He also begins to trust the effects of nurture vs. nature in his life. His mother settled down with a steady, supportive man before he was a year old, and his upbringing from that point on was solid, if haunted by questions about why his father left.

The strands of the story weave together beautifully and by the end a sense of balance is emerging. This book is on my Favorites list.

Note: I received a copy of this book from Net Galley to review.

This was a very interesting memoir about the authors life as he tries to reconnect with a father that left him and his mother when he was a young boy. Never having been close to his father, and having been raised by his mom and a great stepdad, David Gilmour of Pink Floyd.
Nonetheless, Charlie couldn't put the idea of knowing his father behind him. One thing that started bringing back memories was when Charlie and his then girlfriend, came across a young Magpie who had fallen out of its nest, and took it in to save it. They named the magpie Benzene, because of the shiny black iridescent feathers it developed.
Charlie remembered seeing a poem that his Birth father, a poet and artist, Heathcote Williams had written about a similar bird, he had raised, a Jackdaw.
Through the process of trying to reconnect with his very eccentric father Charlie was also able to get to reconnect with his long lost half sisters, as they all spent time together as Heathcote was declining, and becoming harder to communicate with.
This is a story about the bond between man and bird and the things that were learned from it, and that of his fears of repeating his past now that he was too was to become a father.
A great story of self discovery, with a lot of ups and downs along the way.
I would like to thank NetGalley and Scribner for a copy of this book

**Copy provided by Netgalley in exchange for an honest review** Also shared on my Medium page, https://medium.com/@sabina_writes/for...

Forgive me as I write this review, for I am still catching my breath from the last few pages and drying my eyes.

I chose this book by mistake. I thought it was the story of Penguin the Magpie, a heartbreaking story about a family dealing with loss, change, and starting over detailed in little boxes on Instagram. But, from its first pages, I knew it wasn’t Penguin’s story, but Benzene’s story — and I was enamored. This book is unlike anything I’ve ever read.

Charlie Gilmour lets us into his life and it feels like a gift. His remarkable story about love, loss, grief, and the choice to be who you want to be(save nature) left me feeling hopeful. Absolutely stunning. I read it in less than a week, with one day comprised of 300 pages. The story whizzed by, and I fell in love with a creature I once knew very little about, a magpie.

Despite it being Charlie’s personal story, he leaves room for imagination and I at once had a new pet, too. With vivid, active language Gilmour gives the reader a chance to also feel Benzene’s warm claws clench and release as she becomes more secure with her developing sense of freedom. It’s as though she came into his life to heal him, and in return, he set her free. Visceral, honest and achingly self-aware, Featherhood demonstrates how we are more than our nature and how nurture actually forms who we become, if we let it.

A little more background, In Featherhood, Gilmour is grappling with understanding his father (not his dad), who left him and his mother before he could even speak. As Gilmour writes, “It’s the traumas I’m searching for. Answers to those same old questions. Why does a person disappear? What makes a man run from his child? Why was Heathcote so afraid of family? What forces guided that nocturnal flight in spring so many years ago?”

As the story comes full circle and the question, “How can you be a writer if you don’t know anything” that so cruelly claimed even his father’s last days, flashes across Gilmour’s mind, he pens his biography and we witness healing take shape. As a future therapist and I found myself cheering for Gilmour, and even Benzene as she finds that she too will be okay without the anchors of her past.
One critique, and perhaps it’s only because I read this so fast and I couldn’t keep all the stories in my mind, I wish there was a little bit of revisiting as the story moves through the decades. I couldn’t recall some of the finer details about his sisters and why they knew their way around the estate — did they live there, too? I just can’t remember.

I loved how each chapter, even when we’d wander through memories and formative experiences, traumas, and heartbreak, Gilmour always brought us back to his magpie. Benzene would hide food, curl up in his arm, laugh, or just say “come on” and a laugh or smile would come and brighten even the darkest chapters. Truly remarkable writing and I only want more because I want to know if Benzene got her family, too. I know it’s silly, but I’m a romantic and she’d be an amazing carrion mother.

Some lines that stand out to me follow:

On Grief:
“How do you let go of someone you never had? What I’ve lost isn’t a person — I’ve hardly spent twenty hours with him in the last twenty years — but the hope of knowing a person.”
“I didn’t think grief would be like this: a never-ending trail, with myself acting as the prosecutor, judge, and hapless defendant all at once. But that’s how it plays out. I go hunting for Heathcote’s absences, and it’s not hard to find. All the terrible things I’ve done in my life, real and imagined, come crowding into my head, from birth to the present day. It’s like having a mob of scolding crows flapping noisily around in there. They strike whenever they feel like it, with no respect for time or place. At night when I'm trying to sleep, I suddenly curl up in agony like I’ve been poisoned; on the top deck of the bus I beat myself around the head; hunched at a table in the cafe at the end of our street I start clawing at my face and rocking back and forth in my chair; while doing the dishes I hurl abuse at myself, forgetting there are other people in the house…”

“Sometimes the awareness that Heathcote was at least partly to blame breaks through. At the supermarket, in the fruit aisle, I spot a packet of red grades and feel a flash of anger at the memory of his tragic belief that red grapes could cure his incurable condition. “You stupid old man,” I shout at the grapes, kicking at the fruit stand. A frail-looking gentleman shuffling down the aisle toward me stops in his tracks and edges nervously away. I add scaring vulnerable retirees to my list of crimes.”

For anyone enduring grief, Featherhood is also a beautiful collection of synchronicity — how the unexplainable makes sense. A curious little carrion enters his life at the perfect time and for two years we watch Charlie and Beneze grow and develop into independent, resilient beings with lessons and love to share, it’s truly incredible.

I was reminded of The Goldfinch and H is for Hawk, so fans of both will love Featherhood.

More quotes:
“Looking around us at the strangers with their sacks of seed, I wonder what is missing from their lives. I sometimes feel that you can guess the weight of a person’s troubles by the size of the bread bag that they bring for the birds.

“The Truth Against The World”


Thank you, Net Galley, for allowing me to read this book.

I can’t wait to share it with everyone when it releases in 2021. Thank you Charlie Gilmour for sharing your life with me.

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Here is the “About This Book” from Simon and Schuster:
H is for Hawk meets The Duke of Deception in this wry, moving story of a young man who, as his estranged father is dying, saves a baby magpie only to find that caring for the mischievous bird has, in fact, saved 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 comes across a poem written by his biological father, an eccentric British poet named Heathcote Williams who vanished when Charlie was six months old. As he grapples with Heathcote’s abandonment, Charlie is drawn to the poem, in which Heathcote describes how an impish young jackdaw — like magpies, also a member of the crow family — 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 the 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.