TUCO: THE PARROT, THE OTHERS AND A SCATTERSHOT WORLD by Brian Brett
BOOK CLUB CHOICE, February 2021
Reviewed by: Wendy Edgett
Brian Brett, born in April 1950 in BC, is a poet, journalist, editor and novelist. He has published sixteen books. His best-selling “Trauma Farm” won numerous prizes including the Writer’s Trust Award for Canadian non-fiction.
Tuco: The Parrot was published in the Fall of 2015. It is a blend of memoir and natural history. Tuco was an African Grey, who shared the author’s study for 25 years, frequently perching on the author’s shoulder while he typed. Extraordinarily intelligent, mischievous, and vocal, he would invite visitors to “Come on up” and announce “Party time” or ask “Whaddya know”! He could perfectly mimic voices and sounds.
He loved to watch TV with the family, especially scenes of sex or violence! Parrots are flocking birds, and if isolated in a cage will self-harm.
Brian Brett was “born strange”, due to a rare congenital condition: Kallman’s Syndrome. The child was bullied by classmates and local youths, a prey for perverts, on account of his effeminate appearance (othering), and he was treated insensitively by teachers and the medical profession. At age fifteen he was proclaimed male and at age twenty was treated for the condition by hormone injections.
The memoir talks of the marvelous adaptability of birds from their ancestry millions of years ago, their intelligence and that of other species including the many forms of language in the natural world from the dancing of bees, the singing of birds, of whales communicating through hundreds of miles of ocean and even trees “talking” to each other.
The book is rich in scientific and historical detail e.g., King Henry fourth’s banded peregrine was lost chasing a bustard bird in France. Twenty-four hours later it was capture in Malta – 1,350 miles away!
Tuco is highly recommended to those who have an interest in natural history, the connections between humankind and the natural world and above all, empathy.
Recommended:
cbc.ca “Born Strange” …Brian Brett is interviewed by Michael Enright.
YouTube: Brian Brett reads from “Trauma Farm.”
YouTube: Brian Brett reading from “In the Flesh” on Salt Spring Island.
torontopl.kanopy.com: “The Wild Parrots of Telegraph Hill”
Probus Club of Kingsway-Islington 