The Bird is Gone: A Manifesto

by Stephen Graham Jones

Imagine a world where the American government signed a conservation act to "restore all indigenous flora and fauna to the Great Plains," which means suddenly the Great Plains are Indian again. Now fast-forward fourteen years to a bowling alley deep in the Indian Territories. People that bowling alley with characters named LP Deal, Cat Stand, Mary Boy, Courtney Peltdowne, Back Iron, Denim Horse, Naitche, and give them a chance to find a treaty signed under duress by General Sherman, which effectively gives all of the Americas back to the Indians, only hide that treaty in a stolen pipe, put it in a locker, and flush the key down the toilet. Ask LP Deal and the rest what they will trade to get that key back--maybe, everything.

Genres: Historical Fiction, Fiction, Horror, Mystery, Indigenous, Native American, Novels

175 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2003

About the author

Stephen Graham Jones is the NYT bestselling author thirty-five or so books. He really likes werewolves and slashers. Favorite novels change daily, but Valis and Love Medicine and Lonesome Dove and It and The Things They Carried are all usually up there somewhere. Stephen lives in Boulder, Colorado. It's a big change from the West Texas he grew up in.

Reviews

[Lori · Rating 4 out of 5]

I honestly have no idea what I just read but I couldn't put it down. Partly because it was so lusciously written. But also because, let's be frank, I was afraid if I took a break from it, I would lose all momentum and what little I did have connected would break apart in my brain and the storyline, if you could call it that, would become gobbledygook.

had life rotten
nod at the rifle

[Kyle Muntz · Rating 4 out of 5]

An amazing book. If this had been written 20 years earlier, I'd like to think that Stephen Graham Jones would be considered one of the canonical postmodernists. It's fractured, stylish, surreal; with elements of sf, spiritualism, mythology; and also, maddeningly difficult. I like to think of myself as being good at reading difficult novels, but to be honest, on a first read, I hardly understand this one at all: the characters, most of what they were trying to do, and especially how the pieces related to each other, only that they were very vividly realized. But the book is written in a such a way that I think when I reread it (which I'm going to do), I WILL understand these things, or at least much better. This feels sort of like a 600 page book, cut up, refined, and written in 150 pages, with a lot of key moments taking place off-screen rather than being directly described. Leaving this at 4 stars for now, but I'm pretty whenever I reread it it's going to be 5. Also hoping to work through a lot of Jones' other work and get a better idea of the mechanics of his fiction, and maybe use that as a key to taking this book apart as well.

[Adam · Rating 3 out of 5]

I always knew the promise of this book was far too good to be real--one of the most fun and talented weird fiction writers working today, writing a what-if story about an ambitious cultural and ecological restoration of the Plains? It would be a wish come true many times over. Inevitably, Bird is Gone is almost none of those things. But knowing it would probably not be exactly what I imagined didn't prepare me for just how strange this book actually is. It is, kind of astonishingly, a style I know of no better name for than Pynchon-esque. All the same kinds of traits are there, from the cast of characters to the way it zooms and dances around to the energetic but unfocused writing in each scene. It's a testament to just how preternaturally skilled SGJ is that he can pull something like this off and make it look so effortless, when none of the other writing of his I've read bears any resemblance to it, and for that matter, nothing I've read by anyone really resembles it.

The Bird is Gone is technically set in an alternate present when the Great Plains have been entirely returned to Native control, for the purposes of ecological restoration. But in practice the book has not an ounce of interest in that. Instead, it creates a cast of strange characters, cloisters them in a bowling alley, and shows nothing but a kaleidoscopic sequence of stream of consciousness vignettes in different styles and perspectives. There's ostensibly a murder mystery story, but the true mystery seems to be in extracting the real story lurking in the interstices of all these vignettes.

As practically every other reviewer has pointed out, it's tough to review a book like this. It's enjoyable in a lot of small moments, because Jones is just a fucking great writer. And some of the vignettes do fulfill some of the promise I came here for, a set of punk folktales that touch on historical causality and ecology and feel exquisite in their own right. It's just that most of the time, I felt like I was drowning in a stream of uncontextualized clues to a mystery that was never framed, and that's both tiresome and boring. So while it's quite apparent that this is all intentional and probably much more beautiful and clever and impactful in aggregate than I experienced, it's also impossible for me to really vouch for that without another read, and likely some outside study. A lot of the motifs are hard to parse--are these weird things Jones created in a vacuum, or specific references to real Native cultural touchstones, or some hybrid that would be more accessible but not obvious to someone in that milieu? The glossary explains some of the more straightforward ones but doesn't give much of their context, and it doesn't help most of the really important stuff at all.

[Josefine]

This is probably the weirdest book I’ve ever read in my life.

[Sarah Cavar]

This book is incredibly strange and infinitely studyable — three read-throughs in and I’m beginning to make connections, chewing and reformulating as I go. I think I’ll have to return to this a bunch more times before i have any meaningful commentary, but Jones’s historical and semantic play is excellently done, and I really wish he still wrote more work in this vein today.

[Julia · Rating 3 out of 5]

I did not care for what I read of my first hallucinatory, experimental, non-linear mystery novel by this author. Once I’ve read more Stephen Graham Jones I intend to try rereading this. I received this book from PaperBackSwap on 1/3/19.

[Edward Rathke · Rating 5 out of 5]

I've read this little novel four times, and each time I learn more and more what truly happens within the pages.

At first read, I was, to be honest, pretty lost, but I enjoyed it so much that it didn't seem to matter. Experimental or innovative is what I'd call it, and it'll lose some readers, but Jones keeps the prose clever and strong, punctuated by real humor that begins almost immediately, which is no easy task.

With each read, the story's become clearer, the fun and the tricks more fun. It's a book that can be reread over and over and never become tiring. Rather, it grows, becomes so much more, and you see how this rather short novel could've been three hundred more pages, easily. But that's also what makes it so strong, all the ways it's constrained, held back, all the many things that aren't told, that aren't elaborated. It gives the novel to the reader, puts it right in our hands and forces us to sort it out, piece it all together, which makes it one of those books you'll never forget, because, in part, you made it.

Imaginative, innovative, funny, and gripping all at once, while, at the same time, being rather perplexing.

This was the book that sold Dr Jones to me completely, and I've never looked back or slowed down. he's a true original and it started early.

[Stephen Toman · Rating 4 out of 5]

Wow, what a book. There’s so much more going on here than I can get my head around. Almost feels like there’s a few hundred more pages that were cut, leaving behind only the barest details for you to figure out what else is happening. This is a five star book I’m going to have to read again to fully appreciate. I’d love to know more about the writing of this one. This is only the second SGJ I’ve read but I’ve listened to a few interviews and I wonder how his approach has changed since the early, arguably postmodern, days.

[Susan · Rating 4 out of 5]

The alternate history concept of this story was great. I enjoyed the world building and bringing the reader into the fold. Felt like Alice down the rabbit hole with peyote. Loved all of these characters, they were so well developed, I could see them all in my mind's eye. I enjoyed the index at the end so we could learn the lingo.

[Jeff Wait · Rating 4 out of 5]

There’s a lot going on in this one. Gotta really focus to keep up, and even then… /shrugs. It’s not an easy read. But it made me think a lot about literature and form. It also made me feel a lot. Gonna have to mark this for a reread because I think a second pass through will fill in a lot of gaps from the first.

[Aster Haviland · Rating 5 out of 5]

I read this book for a class studying manifestos. It was a really awesome read, not for anyone that really appreciates traditional linear storytelling, but for someone that likes a kind of surrealness? And many interesting characters. I read this a while back, and just got on Goodreads now, so my memory is a little foggy. But I would encourage people to check it out.

[Peg · Rating 3 out of 5]

Like many have stated, I was left confused much of the time, yet couldn't stop reading. There was so much going on, that I know I will reread this in a few months and discover and understand more. In the meantime, I know I will be thinking about many of the characters and events until I return.

[Steve Sabo · Rating 2 out of 5]

I didn't love this one. Of all his books, this was my least favorite. Maybe it was the experimentation or the constant change in perspective or tone, the time jumps, the spaciness... but whatever it was, this one didn't register for me like All the Good Indians, Heart is a Chainsaw, Mongrels, etc.

[Jay Shelat · Rating 4 out of 5]

Exceptionally obtuse and confusing but ultimately a joy to read and unpack, The Bird Is Gone by Stephen Graham Jones is a wonderful, unsolvable narrative Rubik's cube.

[Sarah · Rating 4 out of 5]

A smart book. It'll take multiple reads to grasp the profundity of it.

[_ · Rating 5 out of 5]

Maybe his best book. Or. Maybe it isn't. The book-ness of it is so opaque it's clearly here among the long road, its ditches.

[Lorin (paperbackbish) · Rating 4 out of 5]

So, let’s talk about Bird. This one is not for SGJ beginners, y’all. I felt like Charlie at the big board, tracking all my theories and connections and whatnot. This book digs DEEP into a dystopian “decolonization” situation, in which land is “given back” to the Great Plains tribes. But most of our time is spent at a bowling alley.

The writing, obviously, is stunning. And the characters — there are so many, and we only get snippets with each, but I would HAPPILY read a whole novel about each one. This is a book I’ll have to read at least two more times to pick out all the nuances, and I may need to take notes next time too 😂

While it’s not an “easy” read as far as plot is concerned, it was extremely worthwhile for me. LP and Cat and Denim Horse and Courtney and Back Iron and Naitche — and more — have permanently lodged in my brain.

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️💫

[Travis · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is a puzzle. And it requires a skill set and maybe a skill level that a lot of is maybe don't have. It's not a monograph, it's a manifesto, which I interpret as a challenge to what a novel--any novel, but especially the American Indian novel--can be. So, it's out there, as in, 1) it's weird and 2) it's somewhere other American Indian novels haven't been before. In some ways, this is more like Sesshu Foster's ATOMIK AZTEX than it is Silko's CEREMONY (though that's there too). So here's what I think this book teaches me: every story is a puzzle to the degree that they are all a matter of "choices" or "moves" that the teller makes. Uniformity in the meeting of those pieces' edges is either an illusion or sort of inconsequential--in other words, the story goes where it goes, not where it is supposed to go. That has implications on the way we read this book. Want it to be the American Indian novel? Okay, but. Want it to be like other works of speculative fiction you've read? Okay, but. Looking for high postmodernism? Sure, but. Want a mystery? Fine. But. The book gives you almost everything a novel can be, but maybe not in the way you expect or even want. So, why? That's for the reader to decide, I think, after asking why he or she comes to this or any book with expectations or demands.

If every story has to be the story we all want it to be, there's nowhere else for story go (which is EXACTLY why you should read this as an American Indian novel! [but not the ONLY way you should read it, duh] NO ONE can be the Indian they are "supposed" to be, nor should they have to).

I also feel like Jones would read this review and say, "Man, it's just about bowling," which, you know, it is. So.

[Laura · Rating 3 out of 5]

At the moment I am only giving this three stars because I only understood about half of what was going on. I mean, I read a lot of postmodern stuff, and I have read a lot of difficult novels, but I was definitely not prepared or in the right mindset to read this. It is definitely one of those books that I will need to read again so that I can understand it more. Perhaps, then, my rating will change because I do think that there is some really beautiful and thought-provoking prose in here. I am glad to see that I am in good company, though, as most people who have also reviewed this did not understand the book fully the first time they read it. I will definitely revisit this again sometime.

[Marilee · Rating 3 out of 5]

Yeah, manifestos are tough!

[Angie · Rating 1 out of 5]

Couldn't even get through it. I hate books without punctuation.

[FSU Alumni]

Stephen Graham Jones (Ph.D. '98)

[Rebecca · Rating 3 out of 5]

2.5
Beautiful writing in here, but some of the fonts gave me a headache

[Madison · Rating 4 out of 5]

a fantastic novel. fast paced and packed with messages. A great read

[Craig · Rating 4 out of 5]

Nobody but SGJ could have written this work. I need to read this again.

[David · Rating 5 out of 5]

Be ready to carry your mind out of body into the place many people have gone before without knowing if they will ever come back. Then read this book slowly and carefully. You will never forget it!