And Your Byrd Can Sing by Jim Roberts

A captivating historical drama with a killer premise and characters that will shatter your heart

Since losing his family and his arm to a car wreck, Billy Bastrop has lived in small-town Texas with his Aunt Sunny. She’s as brash as he is reserved; rough, uneducated, and deeply religious to Billy’s shy introspection. Growing up, Billy is painfully aware of everything he is missing. Parents, sister, money, and, of course, his arm. Desperate to find a place among his peers, he makes a choice that he can’t undo. One that will follow him like a ghost through his escape from Texas and for years afterwards.

And Your Byrd Can Sing opens with a short chapter that reads like a prologue with Billy admitting to having killed three men before time rolls back to his early life. What unfolds is a beautifully written coming-of-age novel set in Texas during the 60s and 70s. 

While the story follows Billy as he navigates growing up in a deeply religious, barbarically judgmental rural town, there are so many deeper issues roiling under the surface. This is very much a slow-burn kind of a book. All of those issue will rise to the surface as the narrative moves forward, but they’ll take their sweet time doing so, and when they do, they’ll tear your heart out.

The voice in And Your Byrd Can Sing is so strong it feels like it has a life of its own. The way the characters talk, how Billy describes his feelings, or the way the place itself is discussed are all rendered bright in fresh terms that make reading the novel a pleasure. There were multiple times when I came across passages, sometimes throwaway lines, that made me stop and reread because they rang so true but felt so fresh at the same time. 

Author Jim Roberts depicts a stark snapshot of human life in And Your Byrd Can Sing. All the highs and lows, the darkness and the light. Some scenes and passages are genuinely funny or sweet, but the tide can fast turn to devastation. 

Part of this story is a kid navigating the awkwardness of school, friendships, family, and dating; but the other side of the coin is the undercurrent of racism running through the town, the bullying, casual homophobia, and ableism. Intergenerational trauma weaves through the story like a thread that holds the whole thing together, but it’s easy to overlook until everything tumbles apart. While the themes are deeply intertwined to this story, they’re also nuanced and careful enough as to not overtake the real relationships at the heart of the novel.

And Your Byrd Can Sing is a lovingly crafted historical coming of age story reminiscent of rural American classics. The writing has all the dreamy nostalgia of Willa Cather’s My Antonia running alongside the sharp, brutal humor of Flannery O’Connor. It’s sweet, harsh, funny, and devastating by turns, and a book that anyone who loves a good story about the messiness of humanity should add to their list.