Cover: An Evening With Birdy O’Day by Greg Kearney, read by Sky Gilbert, Bespeak Audio Editions.

An Evening With Birdy O’Day

Maracle, Lee, read by Columpa Bobb

$32.99
  • A funny, boisterous, and deeply moving novel about aging hairstylist Roland’s childhood friendship with Birdy O’Day, whose fevered quest for pop music glory drives them apart

    Roland Keener is an aging hairstylist who’s lived and worked in Winnipeg all his life. He’s more or less content with the quiet and predictable days he shares with his partner of twenty-five years, Tony. That is, until he hears that Birdy O’Day—washed-up music icon and Roland’s childhood best friend and first love—is playing his first concert in Winnipeg since fleeing decades earlier.

    Holing up with a scrapbook of news clippings about Birdy, Roland recalls his childhood in the ’60s and his friendship with Birdy until the pair became estranged when Birdy left in pursuit of stardom. But now, is Birdy’s imminent return to town a chance for the two of them to finally come to terms with their glorious yet troubled past?

    A nostalgic and poignant novel about hero worship, heartbreak, and queer survival, An Evening with Birdy O’Day will remind you that you can never go home again—even if you never left it in the first place.

  • Greg Kearney is the author of the story collections Mommy Daddy Baby (2004) and Pretty (2011), which won a ReLit Award, and the novel The Desperates (2013), a Lambda Literary Award finalist. He lives in Toronto and Winnipeg.

  • Published: June 2024

    ISBN: 9781778523489

    Duration: 9:51

Reviews

“Nobody does razor-witted tenderness like Greg Kearney. Bluntly incisive, endearing, and uproarious, An Evening with Birdy O’Day dazzled and delighted me. This book is a love bomb, and Roland and his mom are my heroes.” — Jessica Westhead, author of Avalanche