Dirty Birds

by Morgan Murray

In late 2008, as the world's economy crumbles and Barack Obama ascends to the White House, the remarkably unremarkable Milton Ontario - not to be confused with Milton, Ontario - leaves his parents' basement in Middle-of-Nowhere, Saskatchewan, and sets forth to find fame, fortune, and love in the Euro-lite electric sexuality of Montreal; to bask in the endless twenty-something Millennial adolescence of the Plateau; to escape the infinite flatness of Saskatchewan and find his messiah - Leonard Cohen. Hilariously ironic and irreverent, in Dirty Birds, Morgan Murray generates a quest novel for the twenty-first century--a coming-of-age, rom-com, crime-farce thriller--where a hero's greatest foe is his own crippling mediocrity as he seeks purpose in art, money, power, crime, and sleeping in all day.

Genres: Fiction, Canada, Audiobook, Book Club, Contemporary

518 pages, Paperback

First published July 31, 2020

Reviews

[b · Rating 2 out of 5]

I really wanted to love this but it’s too long & too poorly edited and I don’t have the ~naive butterfly sanctuary~ set up in my stomach at this age to continue appreciating stories about boring creative-wannabe men learning to think of women as real people (Milton doesn’t necessarily even accomplish this). I loved the novel even a few hundred pages in, but it soured very quickly when it became clear it was plain undercooked. Hopefully Murray’s demonstrated humour and his sardonic take on the incongruous way the world can seem some days will persist and result in a work that meets the readers far closer in the middle than this mess.

[Sarah Butland · Rating 4 out of 5]

A literary mix of romance, confusion, mystery and wonder, Dirty Birds is purely Canadian with some bilingualism, confusion and obsessions mixed nicely with an odd perspective of Leonard Cohen and some poetry.

Throw in some turkey vultures and stale bagels and you have a different look and feel of Montreal and the Canadian world around it!

Sarah Butland

PS: For a full review check out my website!

[Birdhound · Rating 5 out of 5]

You’ll never read a better egg-induced riot scene than in these pages, I promise.

[Tamara Taylor · Rating 5 out of 5]

"Dirty Birds" is a rollicking, rambunctious rumpus unlike anything I've ever read. This is the sublime fusion of the dry, mundane and monotonous with the outlandish, witty and bizarre. Murray perfectly captures the excruciating struggle in this awkward coming-of-age saga of a small-town-everyman yearning for more. By turns cringeworthy, shocking and outrageous, the serial-beige Milton lives a life that is anything but dull. A hearty dose of Canadiana makes this cross country quest as relatable as eating poutine at the hockey rink. I couldn't put this book down and laugh-snorted my way through it.

[Louise · Rating 5 out of 5]

There were moments I couldn't breathe for laughing! And there were moments I worried about Milton as much as I did my own sons when they left home. This is one of the most interesting styles of writing I've ever read. The style guides and rule books for what not to do when writing, now need to be completely rewritten!! Because it absolutely worked! A new author, an innovative approach to telling a story and characters that I really cared about and already miss. What more can a reader ask for? Well done!

[Meghan · Rating 2 out of 5]

Milton Ontario, a guy who grew up in Saskatchewan just wants to be a poet. But when he’s told over and over again that it’s a dying art medium he takes off for Montreal where he tries to pursue his dreams. This novel had so many ups and downs and just kinda felt all over the place. The fact that the plot took these weird twists and turns left the reader feeling confused and at times they lost what the point of the novel was. This was basically a coming of age story about a boy who wanted to become a poet and then became obsessed with a girl he thought he was in love with, all while becoming weirdly famous. The characters didn’t feel like anything special; there wasn’t anything that felt memorable, what happened to them felt more relatable and significant than they were as characters, and that’s what kept the reader reading. The Canadian references were good, and some of the Canadian history was good too, there were also moments that the reader thought were funny, but there were also a lot of immature, supposed to be funny antidotes that fell flat. The pacing of this novel was fast, but after a while the jokes and stories started to drag and feel really long and the reader just wanted it to be over. The addition of the hand drawings were, like the jokes, either a hit or a miss, but they did help move the story along. Overall, this wasn’t the most enjoyable read, but this definitely did have moments where it was good, it was just unfortunate that the inadequate outweighed the good.

[Holly · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was goddamn hilarious and overflowing with Canadianity and incroyable and the intermittent French was GREAT and I need to tell my friend that went to Anglophone university in Montreal with an asymmetric haircut about it. I did find the second half of the book too long (it's my attention span, she's not great bud) and am left with an urgent need to point out that during a scene where someone with a broken beer bottle tries to stab someone else with it, this is known as a "Winnipeg handshake". Having said that, I'm not sure if that rule applies in Newfoundland.

[Erin Lynes · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book will have the greatest appeal to people who enjoy off the wall comedy. I enjoyed that the story was set in Canada and the characters felt like people I might know in real life. If you are looking for a story that is anything but a cookie cutter grocery store novel, you'll enjoy the twists, turns, sarcasm and history prevented in this unique and delightful read.

[Chad Pelley · Rating 4 out of 5]

Murray writes with such vivacity - there's so much energy and verve in this book - I don't know how the covers stay shut. It's bursting with comedy and style. It's the liveliest, most innovative book I've read in a long, long time.

[Enid Wray]

And this is why having real hard copy books matters!! I really have done my best to not let the physical reality that is the actual tangible object - this book - not colour my reading experience… In other words I really have given this the old college try! Rah, rah!

But… the physical book is teeny, tiny, chunky, awkward to hold, and impossible to read comfortably. That’s before we even get to the matter of the oh so teeny tiny typesetting. This is perhaps the most difficult to read title I have attempted to read for years… yes, years!

Then there is that actual ‘story’ - if we can call it that… It’s a mash-up of random mumbling jumbled up often incoherent disconnect fragments. (Is that well enough sampled for you?)

That’s not to say that it’s not informative… I’m a (transplanted) Prairie girl with MB and SK roots - and I didn’t even know there were towns named Elbow and Eyebrow in SK. For real!

The fundamental problem though is that I just never get to a point where I care enough about Milton’s ‘epic’ journey - hah! hah! - to be bothered to continue reading… notwithstanding that (my beloved) Leonard Cohen lies (possibly) at the end of the journey (oh, but we know that he ends up right back where he started in the second paragraph… which I don’t want to know by the way…

Maybe I should try a digital copy?

[Sarah (more.books.than.days) · Rating 5 out of 5]

Morgan Murray fills his pages with dialogue spoken in hilarious Canadian vernacular, something that so rarely meets the page in popular fiction, interspersed with his own black and white illustrations, and the most epic footnotes detailing facts from Canada's history with wry humour. The story is a Canadian coming-of-age meets crime-farce thrill, that hints at all the ridiculousness of our national tradition, from This Hour Has 22 Minutes, to the Vinyl Cafe. A true Canadian novel that I will share, and reread.

[Andrew · Rating 5 out of 5]

What a journey!

Oh, Milton Ontario, what happenstance have you stumbled into this time?

Milton Ontario hailing from Bellybutton, Saskatchewan, is a young man seeking a career as a poet and decided to move to Montreal, Quebec, to launch his career. What happens thereafter, I’ll leave up to you to discover, dear reader.

The sheer journey/character arc that Murray has crafted in this tale is immense! Both for Milton and his hilarious Newfie friend, Noddy.

This one is worth reading and being Murray’s first novel, I’m eager to see what he writes next!

Happy reading, everybody!

[Elecia C · Rating 5 out of 5]

Since Bernie Federko is my second cousin twice removed and I didn't need any of the footnotes during the literary ride through Saskatchewan, this book was everything I've ever wanted. I adored every page and learned a lot about life and love and Leonard Cohen. Grateful to the brilliant author for bringing something so joyous and insane into this world.

[Neil Manuel · Rating 5 out of 5]

Dirty Birds was a fun ride that felt very genuine and honest, but at the same time full of twists and turns that came out of nowhere. I had a lot of fun reading it, and maybe even learned a thing or two.

[Jane Doucet · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is an EPIC story. It's funny—you'll laugh out loud (I sure did!). It's Canadian. The author is from rural Alberta but now lives in rural Cape Breton. Can you imagine this guy's take on life with that background? Hang on—you don't have to imagine it. Just read Dirty Birds!

[Luke Spooner · Rating 3 out of 5]

It's good and funny. Did start to get a little tiresome though, it's pretty long. I think I would have preferred it if it was split into three smaller parts. The ending was pretty abrupt as well. I did love how unabashedly Canadian it is.

[Louella Lester · Rating 5 out of 5]

I enjoyed this quirky book and laughed many times while I read it.

[Tori Williams · Rating 5 out of 5]

I picked this book up during a trip to Vancouver because it caught my eye and I thought I’d learn some interesting things about Canada. Little did I know that I’d read through this so quickly and enjoy it so much. Sure, Milton is a total stick in the mud, but the comical misfortunes that happen to him at every turn really keeps you interested.

This is a comical coming of age tale of an unrealistic 24 year old boy and his unrealistic standards about himself and the world around him. I enjoyed it because, as a teacher of teenagers, I saw my students in him. Fumbling, making faux pas, naive, awkward with women, bad at making friends, gullible, doing almost anything for money to survive…he was relatable. You wanted to cheer for him while also cringing at everything he did.

I did find the ending to be a bit disappointing, but it was very on brand for Milton Ontario. The author really stuck to his story and style from beginning to end. I respect that. I will totally read this again sometime.

[Hillary · Rating 2 out of 5]

I think it's funny for someone. But I'm curious who?

[Heather · Rating 4 out of 5]

Caveat with my rating: I knew people very much like the characters in the book (except Leonard Cohen) and was very aware of the strange magnetism that drew them to Montreal in the 1990s. And I have also lived and spent lots of time in St. John's and with people obsessed with hockey. So.... this book may have been written for me. I was laughing hysterically at parts that may fall flat to readers who grew up in a different time period or with a different friend cohort.

[Martin Curran · Rating 4 out of 5]

Maybe the most Canadian novel I’ve ever read! (Not in a boring way.)

[Reina · Rating 5 out of 5]

Whoa.

[Erika · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of my favourite books I have read in a long time. Clever, funny, and especially entertaining to read as an Anglo Montrealer. I loved it!

[Christina · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really enjoyed this book. It was hilarious and so very Canadian.

[Vanessa · Rating 4 out of 5]

If ya want a Canadian book, this is it. Murray makes jabs at a few Canadianism but it makes the book what it is.

[M. · Rating 5 out of 5]

I almost gave this four stars because it got silly with LC, but I keep trying to weave Newfie slang into all of my interactions and I might have submitted a PhD application to MUN, so honestly, a perfect book for this prairie girl

[Miranda Mayo · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent read, had me laughing out loud at some parts!

[Ange · Rating 3 out of 5]

Audiobook Review to follow

[Snakes · Rating 3 out of 5]

Bought this on a holiday to British Columbia and found it pretty funny, a coming of age story with a good bunch of humor, and I likely missed a good amount of the jokes or cultural laughs because I wasn’t raised in Canada.

[Kerry Pickens · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is one of the funniest books I have read in a while. The problem is that the writing is badly edited, and that interfers with following the manic activities of the protagonist, Milton Ontario. Milton is a millenial that moves from rural Saskatchewan to Montreal in hopes of becoming a hipster poet. He finds that the life of a Canadian hipster is not all he bargained for as he faces heartbreak, underemployment, and the moral ambiguity of the hipster movement. He lives on bad fruit and stale bagels, shares an apartment with too many people, and works too many low paying jobs with no future. Having lived in Austin, TX for many years, this lifestyle choice is very familiar to me. If you liked the movie Slacker or appreciate the humor in Confederacy of Dunces, you will enjoy this book.