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We Should All Be Birds : A Memoir
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Overview
Longlisted for the 2026 Reading the West AwardsA charming and moving debut memoir about how a man with a mystery illness saves a pigeon, and how the pigeon saves the man."I loved every page of this book: funny, sad, romantic, and full of pigeons."--Sy Montgomery On a spring evening in Montana, Brian Buckbee encounters an injured baby pigeon. Heartbroken after the loss of the love of his life and increasingly isolated by a mysterious illness that overtook him while trekking through Asia, Brian is unaware that this bird--who he names Two-Step--will change his life. Brian takes in Two-Step, and more injured birds, eventually transforming his home into a madcap bird rehabilitation and rescue center. As Brian and Two-Step grow closer, an unexpected kinship forms. But their paths won't converge forever: as Two-Step heals and finds love, Brian's condition worsens, and with his friend's release back into the world looming closer, Brian must decide where this story leaves him. We Should All Be Birds follows Brian, unable to read or write due to a never-ending headache, as he dictates the end of his old life--as an adventurer, an iconoclastic university instructor, and endurance athlete--through his relationship with a pigeon that comes to define his present. Limited to dictation, Brian teams up with Carol Ann Fitzgerald, an editor who channels the details of his personal history to the pages. Raw and perceptive, delirious and devastating, We Should All Be Birds is an unflinching exploration of chronic illness, grief, connection, and the spectacular beauty of the natural world--and the humble pigeon. The surprising, heartwarming relationship between man and bird provides insight into what it means to love, to suffer, and to "never forget, even for a second, how big it all is."
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Details
- ISBN-13: 9781963108293
- ISBN-10: 1963108299
- Publisher: Tin House
- Publish Date: August 2025
- Dimensions: 8.66 x 5.86 x 0.94 inches
- Shipping Weight: 0.85 pounds
- Page Count: 256
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“Right now I am dictating this on my couch under a blanket with my feet up on the coffee table, and a bird just stepped up onto the toes of my right foot and is perched there looking at me,” Brian Buckbee writes in his captivating memoir, We Should All Be Birds. Just two months into the COVID-19 pandemic, Buckbee began caring for an injured pigeon who ended up saving his life. Both, as it turns out, were in serious trouble. The bird, whom he named Two-Step, was malnourished and had a deformed leg that prevented him from walking properly. Buckbee was mourning a tough breakup. He had also recently been diagnosed with chronic fatigue syndrome, which left him with no energy and an ongoing, excruciating headache he calls “the black monster.” The formerly athletic English teacher and writer was unable to read or look at a computer screen. When he came across Two-Step on a walk in his neighborhood, one thing led to another: The bird eventually hopped into his hands, Buckbee took him home and consulted with a wildlife rehabilitator. After Two-Step healed, Buckbee dutifully released him back to the world. But he came back again and again. Buckbee took in more pigeons in need, until eventually there were “enough to fill a table at the Last Supper.” Buckbee is a probing, humorous writer who bravely bares his soul, interweaving the story of his birds, his relationship with his former fiancée and her son, and the dramatic, mysterious onset of his medical condition while he was in Southeast Asia on an epic adventure vacation. Because his illness doesn’t allow him to read or write, he dictates his story, with editor Carol Ann Fitzgerald helping finalize it in written form. Fitzgerald is “a wind-in-the-sails kind of person,” Buckbee writes, acknowledging her critical role in getting his story to print. Their collaboration is amazingly seamless, and Buckbee proves to be a natural storyteller. As in many stories about animal-human relationships, the rescue here works both ways. “Two-Step opened a kettle of loneliness inside me and released all the pressure,” writes Buckbee. In the midst of the isolating pandemic and the most abysmal period of his life, one needy pigeon reminded him “how interesting the world is, how if you can just be calm and curious, you might experience its beauty and wonder with a like-minded creature.” We Should All Be Birds shows how keenly one can learn to appreciate the lively world at hand, no matter how small that world has become.
“Right now I am dictating this on my couch under a blanket with my feet up on the coffee table, and a bird just stepped up onto the toes of my right foot and is perched there looking at me,” Brian Buckbee writes in his captivating memoir, We Should All Be Birds. Just two months into the COVID-19 pandemic, Buckbee began caring for an injured pigeon who ended up saving his life. Both, as it turns out, were in serious trouble. The bird, whom he named Two-Step, was malnourished and had a deformed leg that prevented him from walking properly. Buckbee was mourning a tough breakup. He had also recently been diagnosed with chronic fatigue syndrome, which left him with no energy and an ongoing, excruciating headache he calls “the black monster.” The formerly athletic English teacher and writer was unable to read or look at a computer screen. When he came across Two-Step on a walk in his neighborhood, one thing led to another: The bird eventually hopped into his hands, Buckbee took him home and consulted with a wildlife rehabilitator. After Two-Step healed, Buckbee dutifully released him back to the world. But he came back again and again. Buckbee took in more pigeons in need, until eventually there were “enough to fill a table at the Last Supper.” Buckbee is a probing, humorous writer who bravely bares his soul, interweaving the story of his birds, his relationship with his former fiancée and her son, and the dramatic, mysterious onset of his medical condition while he was in Southeast Asia on an epic adventure vacation. Because his illness doesn’t allow him to read or write, he dictates his story, with editor Carol Ann Fitzgerald helping finalize it in written form. Fitzgerald is “a wind-in-the-sails kind of person,” Buckbee writes, acknowledging her critical role in getting his story to print. Their collaboration is amazingly seamless, and Buckbee proves to be a natural storyteller. As in many stories about animal-human relationships, the rescue here works both ways. “Two-Step opened a kettle of loneliness inside me and released all the pressure,” writes Buckbee. In the midst of the isolating pandemic and the most abysmal period of his life, one needy pigeon reminded him “how interesting the world is, how if you can just be calm and curious, you might experience its beauty and wonder with a like-minded creature.” We Should All Be Birds shows how keenly one can learn to appreciate the lively world at hand, no matter how small that world has become.