Dirty Birds

By: Morgan Murray

Narrated by: David Ferry

In late 2007, as the world’s economy crumbles, the remarkably unremarkable Milton Ontario - not to be confused with Milton, Ontario - leaves his parent’s basement in Saskatchewan and sets forth to find fame, fortune, and love in the electric sexuality of Montreal, to bask in endless Millennial adolescence, to escape the infinite flatness of Saskatchewan, and to find his messiah: Leonard Cohen.

Hilariously ironic and irreverent, Dirty Birds is a quest novel for the 21st century - a coming-of-age, rom-com, crime-farce thriller - where a hero’s greatest foe is his own crippling mediocrity, and getting out of bed before noon.

Bespeak Audio Editions brings Canadian voices to the world with audiobook editions of some of the country’s greatest works of literature, performed by Canadian actors.

©2020 Morgan Murray (P)2021 ECW Press

Critic reviews

“Billed as a quest novel for the 21st century, this coming-of-age rom-com is about finding purpose, art, money, crime ... and sleeping in.” (The Globe and Mail’s Summer’s Hottest Reads)

“Canadians rejoice! Our Vonnegut has finally arrived! Morgan Murray’s debut is a great, brawling, sprawling, muscular glory of a story. Funny, dark, and wholly original.” (Will Ferguson, winner of the Scotiabank Giller Prize)

“One of the most fun and dynamic aspects of the book is Morgan’s facility with different dialogues. These include, but are not limited to, the matrix of the prairie junior hockey structure, the non-stop conversation of a Newfoundland taxi driver, academic papers, police files, and, most prominently, Milton’s poetry. These are often decoded and/or annotated in footnotes, a comedic amplification that’s an effective and refreshing device in this fiction. There’s work and care in the writing; the experiences, however foolish, feel earned. At the same time it’s kinetic: the words, like birds, take flight.” (Joan Sullivan, The Telegram)