Firebird

My curiosity got the better of me when Firebird was released, since it is autobiographical, and yes, it is that Mark Doty. Those junior high years were but a blip on the screen of Mark's life (chapter seven), but his memories and descriptions of the place and the same people I knew are spot on. This book, however, is so much more than a snippet of shared history. There is nothing I could say about this book that would accurately describe its impact on me--all of my words would be an understatement.

Mark Doty's work is fine art. His prose and the structure work beautifully together. This is not another package of self-pity in which the author is intentionally pulling up emotions. Yes, I cringed and felt outrage at some of the most uncomfortable parts, but the writer soothed me and reassured me that where there is art, there is a home, a place in the world--like that which Petula Clark sings about in "Downtown."

I am proud of and pleased for Mark Doty's outstanding literary achievements. I also thank him for having the courage to write this book. Many of us who are fortunate enough to have read it are grateful and forever changed through the experience of his work of art.

I recommend it to anyone who is gay, straight, or undecided.


succinct, intriguing   April 30, 2000
 7 out of 8 found this review helpful

This is an interesting and succinct memoir of an unusual childhood. When I saw it at the library I thought, "Oh, Okay . . . another book about some writer's childhood." But I grabbed it anyway thinking that it might be fun reading a sort of autobiography of a person with whom I an totally unfamiliar. I ended up enjoying it. Doty is only a little older than me - but his childhood was amazingly different than mine. Sometimes it was hilarious - like the description of his mild contempt for his fellow dance school student. Or his getting caught dressed in drag practicing show tunes in his room. At other times it was terribly sad and pathetic - his mother's end, for example. Parts of it left me a little astonished - "Huh? His parents dropped him of on the highway so he could hitch to San Francisco at age fourteen?" After reading his intriguing childhood memoir I will certainly be reading some of Doty's poetry.


Mark Doty's FIREBIRD: The Beautiful Sadness of Childhood   April 2, 2000
 5 out of 5 found this review helpful

In his memoir, Mark Doty says, "The older I get, the more I distrust redemption; it isn't in the power of language to repair the damages." Though I agree with Doty's thought-prevoking statement, I would also venture to say that the power of this book, though it does not attempt to sugar-coat the past, does make of what is difficult a thing of beauty.

Poet Mark Doty has a uniquely adept ability to find beauty in the most tragic of events, not in a way that minimizes, but ironically, in a way that points them up even more clearly. For it is those events that shape us, Doty says, like it or not, and we cannot run from them, we can only claim them.

This memoir is brave and honest, profound and wise, beautifully and powerfully written. I believe my life more rich for having read it.


Charming, heartbreaking, honest...   January 21, 2000
 10 out of 12 found this review helpful

This is a beautiful memoir. I admit I was attracted to the cover: the author's picture was totally adorable. In fact, after reading the book I can honestly say he is one of the few writers I have ever really wanted to meet, because I felt as if I was reading the autobiography of a dear friend.

My heart broke when I realized that his first foray away from home, to the big city of San Francisco, dropped off by his parents on the highway, was at AGE FOURTEEN! I thought, what kind of parents would allow their child to go out into the world alone like that?

I also felt sad when he realized, fully, that his parents didn't "see" him anymore, that he was something of a ghost in his home, being "allowed" to nest there.

I had to laugh when his father said he could get a job at a casino if "the professor thing" didn't work out, and the man's non-sequitor conversations with his son. It reminded me of my father. When I was in my mid-thirties I told him I felt suicidal over a recent romantic loss. "Gee, the price of real estate is going up around here!" he exclaimed.

I, too, am writing a memoir, so Mr. Doty's unusually poignant and open-hearted one was very helpful. He's a wonderful storyteller.

Thanks to the author. e-mail: femmesage@earthlink.net if he's ever going to be in Santa Fe.


Great Book   November 23, 1999
 12 out of 13 found this review helpful

I bought this book with a cynical heart; I loved Bernard Cooper's _Truth Serum_ memoirs so much that I was pretty sure all other coming of gay-age autobiography would be inferior in comparison. I'm happy to have been wrong. I thought _Firebird_ was wise and unpretentious, articulate and clear: it works for all the same reasons _TS_ succeeded. It is a very well-written book by a thoughtful writer.