What do you think?
Rate this book
Let The Birds Drink In Peace
Each of Robert Garner McBrearty’s stories has its own sensibility, but what his characters share is a desire to know how best to live when confronted by unforeseeable chance. Here readers will meet budding writers, ailing professors, reluctant gunslingers, and kidnapped kids; they grapple with conflicts of conscience and the mysteries of love. McBrearty excels in devising believable worlds and characters with open, sometimes breakable, hearts.
156 pages, Paperback
First published October 19, 2011
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews
October 23, 2020
McBrearty is a master of the subtle humor in the short story while also maintaining a strong sense of profundity. Each story is a treat.
July 23, 2012
http://www.hcn.org/issues/44.12/hero-...
Let the Birds Drink In Peace
Robert Garner McBrearty
152 pages, softcover: $14.99.
Conundrum Press, 2011.
In Colorado writer Robert Garner McBrearty's fresh and funny new story collection, Let the Birds Drink In Peace, a boy tells his mother he plans to do something great when he grows up. "Everybody feels like that when they're young," she replies. And yet, in several stories in this collection –– McBrearty's third –– regular guys do experience an instant of greatness as they save other people from danger –– and then struggle with the consequences.
In "The Acting Class," for example, a young man working at an Austin mental hospital rescues a patient from a bathroom assault, inspiring a coworker to fall in love with him. He invents a war-hero past to match his new girlfriend's romantic ideas, but as his lies unravel, so does their relationship.
In "The Helmeted Man," 43-year-old college student Alex tries to write about the time he rescued a woman from an armed mugger at an ATM, and ends up finally questioning how heroic he actually was. "For ten years, Alex had coasted on the big moment," McBrearty writes.
Fortunately for readers, McBrearty has not coasted on his own big moment, when he won the prestigious Sherwood Anderson Award in 2007. His stories remain as sharp and hilarious as ever, such as the "The Dishwasher," with its deadpan approach –– "I'm a dishwasher in a restaurant. I'm not trying to impress anybody. I'm not bragging. It's just what I do."
Other stories playfully eviscerate the myths of the Old West. In "Back in Town," a reformed rapscallion of the Deadwood sort promises his wife he won't go into town and carouse. "It has been a year now since I've given up drinking and whoring and looting and stealing horses and robbing banks and shooting up the town and using foul language," he explains. And in "Alamo Dreams" and "Colonel Travis's Lament," McBrearty tackles the legend of the Alamo, finding comedy amid the chaotic bloodshed.
McBrearty's ability to transform tragic or scary events like this demonstrates his generous perspective. Let the Birds Drink In Peace proves that anything can be funny if you consider it from the right angle.
Let the Birds Drink In Peace
Robert Garner McBrearty
152 pages, softcover: $14.99.
Conundrum Press, 2011.
In Colorado writer Robert Garner McBrearty's fresh and funny new story collection, Let the Birds Drink In Peace, a boy tells his mother he plans to do something great when he grows up. "Everybody feels like that when they're young," she replies. And yet, in several stories in this collection –– McBrearty's third –– regular guys do experience an instant of greatness as they save other people from danger –– and then struggle with the consequences.
In "The Acting Class," for example, a young man working at an Austin mental hospital rescues a patient from a bathroom assault, inspiring a coworker to fall in love with him. He invents a war-hero past to match his new girlfriend's romantic ideas, but as his lies unravel, so does their relationship.
In "The Helmeted Man," 43-year-old college student Alex tries to write about the time he rescued a woman from an armed mugger at an ATM, and ends up finally questioning how heroic he actually was. "For ten years, Alex had coasted on the big moment," McBrearty writes.
Fortunately for readers, McBrearty has not coasted on his own big moment, when he won the prestigious Sherwood Anderson Award in 2007. His stories remain as sharp and hilarious as ever, such as the "The Dishwasher," with its deadpan approach –– "I'm a dishwasher in a restaurant. I'm not trying to impress anybody. I'm not bragging. It's just what I do."
Other stories playfully eviscerate the myths of the Old West. In "Back in Town," a reformed rapscallion of the Deadwood sort promises his wife he won't go into town and carouse. "It has been a year now since I've given up drinking and whoring and looting and stealing horses and robbing banks and shooting up the town and using foul language," he explains. And in "Alamo Dreams" and "Colonel Travis's Lament," McBrearty tackles the legend of the Alamo, finding comedy amid the chaotic bloodshed.
McBrearty's ability to transform tragic or scary events like this demonstrates his generous perspective. Let the Birds Drink In Peace proves that anything can be funny if you consider it from the right angle.
December 30, 2011
I don't read short stories very often. I generally don't find them very satisfying, I think because there isn't room for much character development. I felt this way about McBrearty's collection. I wanted to know the characters better. But I did really enjoy the dialogue in each story; it rings true and is often interesting and entertaining.
January 11, 2014
McBrearty is a master of the short story genre. This is his second collection and is every bit as powerful in its scope and insight as his first. A must read for lovers of the short story, the most difficult literary convention in my opinion. I look forward to his next book.
May 18, 2015
Some of the stories were interesting and others were down right odd.....
March 31, 2015
A lovely collection of smart, diverse stories.
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews