Greg Kearney’s novel An Evening with Birdy O’Day is the most moving book I have read all year, a heartbreaking and clever portrayal of two gay men over a 60 year period of their lives.
Zoe Whittall wrote of the book:
“An Evening with Birdy O’Day is like a modern-day Wharton novel crossed with a Kids in the Hall sketch. Like everything Kearney writes, it is biting and hilarious, with characters as tough and smart as they are tragic. Both a satire of celebrity culture and a moving portrait of two gay boys coming of age in 1970s working-class Winnipeg, this ambitious novel is propulsive and electrifying. Once I started reading, I could not put it down, and for once I’m not lying when I say that. Kearney is a masterful storyteller of stunning intellect, and An Evening with Birdy O’Day is like nothing Canadian literature has ever seen.”
In his own words, here is Greg Kearney’s Book Notes music playlist for his novel An Evening with Birdy O’Day:
I don’t listen to music when I write; I have cognitive problems that make concentration difficult even in silence. But! My new novel, An Evening with Birdy O’Day, tracks the sixty year friendship between a musical prodigy and his biggest fan, Roland, so it’s filled with references to classic tracks and beloved singers. Queer divas abound.
Dionne Warwick, “Always Something There to Remind Me”
At Birdy’s seventh birthday party, Birdy receives a Dionne Warwick record from his sweet, drunken mother, Judy. Birdy and Roland cement their suffocating alliance as they pass the album cover back and forth and bask in Warwick’s perfect mezzo.
Diana Ross and the Supremes, “Love Child”
When Margaret, Roland’s mother and Birdy’s guardian, heads out for a two week therapy retreat, the boys are left in the care of Dr. Caesar Stock, their choir teacher, a blindingly handsome man with an opaque past.
Birdy is excited about the Supremes’ upcoming appearance on The Ed Sullivan Show. After a strange, fractious exchange with Dr. Stock, however, Birdy takes to his room, despite Roland’s pleas that he come and watch their favourite girl group on TV.
Roland is left to watch The Ed Sullivan Show alone with Dr. Stock, feeling vaguely traitorous as his beloved friend stews upstairs.
Shirley Bassey, “Big Spender”
Birdy regards Shirley Bassey as the epitome of class and thrilling vocal bombast. She even appears in Birdy and Roland’s grade five science fair project, “All About Hair” (Birdy cites Shirley as possessing immaculate bangs).
Peter Allen, “I Go to Rio”
If there is a real world equivalent to Birdy O’Day, it’s the late Peter Allen, whose sequined showmanship provide a template for Birdy’s latter day stage persona, as Birdy’s career falters and he’s reduced to playing tiny casinos and legion halls. I can’t remember the exact impetus for the novel, but I’m sure Peter Allen and his unapologetic swish were a big part of my early mood board.
Barbra Streisand, “As If We Never Said Goodbye”
Streisand used this campy ode to stage fright as her intro song when she resumed touring after thirty years. I wanted to use it as Birdy O’Day’s intro song at the end of the book; it’s probably the most shameless musical plea for applause I’ve ever heard. But when I learned the costly, arduous process of getting permission to reprint lyrics, I scrapped the idea and whipped an even more shameless (and borderline incoherent) ditty for Birdy’s big return to Winnipeg.
Greg Kearney’s first novel The Desperates (2013) was a Lambda Literary Award finalist, and his plays have been mounted at Theatre Passe Muraille and Buddies in Bad Times Theatre. He divides his time between Toronto and Winnipeg.