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Catbirds
It’s the height of the pandemic when Randy Green learns that his brother Adam has been found dead in a deserted New England marina, 3,000 miles away. With little interest or help from the police or other family members, he sets out to piece together what really happened to his complicated, difficult brother—and why.
Unfolding in bursts of incantatory prose as Randy struggles to compose a suitable eulogy for his brother at the last possible moment, Catbirds is a mystery, a meditation on grief and healing, and a portrait of a riven family in a riven land.
Unfolding in bursts of incantatory prose as Randy struggles to compose a suitable eulogy for his brother at the last possible moment, Catbirds is a mystery, a meditation on grief and healing, and a portrait of a riven family in a riven land.
- GenresFiction
184 pages, Paperback
Published August 8, 2025
3 people are currently reading
3245 people want to read
About the author
Ezra Palmer
3 books14 followersEzra Palmer grew up in Brooklyn and now lives in Los Angeles with his family. Originally a newspaper writer and editor, he went on to launch and run internet properties for The Wall Street Journal and other companies. Catbirds is his first novel.
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Displaying 1 - 12 of 12 reviews
November 10, 2025
Wonderful writing, lovely presentation. Family dysfunction and toxicity run rampant across the narrator's search for meaning in his hated brother's mysterious death.
August 27, 2025
This is right up my reading alley! It might not be everyone's cup of tea. An unreliable narrator, unorthodox writing style, and repetitive verbage, that works with the story if you give it a chance. I love unique perspectives and writing so I gobbled it up . An introspective take on the black sheep of the family and the resulting trajectory one brother has on his own life and how family reacts. Recommend! Stampede!
September 19, 2025
"Boyland, my mother called it, the wild kingdom."
Catbirds is experimental. It ignores the concept of good punctuation and grammar almost entirely, spiralling onward in prose that is repetitive (deliberately so), cadenced like poetry, and mesmerising once you fall into its rhythm. It took me longer than I’d like to realise the formatting was intentional, but once I did, I really, really enjoyed what I was reading.
"...when he was a baby, she had said, he cried all the time, he was colicky, I just never knew what to do with, that's what she used to say about Adam, I just never knew what to do with him..."
The story follows Randy, attempting to write a eulogy for his eldest brother while confronting the manner of his death and everything that led to it. In a stream-of-consciousness that is sometimes frustratingly fragmented, Palmer paints the story of the four Green brothers (Adam, Willie, Randy, and Evan) growing up under absentee parents, in a world of conflict, violence, rivalry, and tenuous safety. The novel explores family and perception, how different people can live inside different realities, and how memory can fracture and wound.
"...in her mind I had abandoned Adam, I had ignored him at a time when he needed me, it hurt me to hear that, of course, because a part of me saw it that way, too..."
It’s raw and real and confused and laden with grief. It’s not pretty, it’s not perfect, but it is very, very good. Beautiful and upsetting, it made me think about my own relationships with my siblings (markedly healthier than the Greens') and about questions that haunt many families: where do you lay blame, when do you set down guilt, and at what point is blood no longer thicker than water?
For readers who appreciated Sally Rooney’s style in Normal People or Conversations with Friends, Palmer’s unique prose might do the trick. I’ll be looking out eagerly for future work.
Thank you to Netgalley as well as Taag & Rohg for providing me with an ARC in exchange for an honest review.
4 and 1/2 stars (rounded up to five for Goodreads sake).
Catbirds is experimental. It ignores the concept of good punctuation and grammar almost entirely, spiralling onward in prose that is repetitive (deliberately so), cadenced like poetry, and mesmerising once you fall into its rhythm. It took me longer than I’d like to realise the formatting was intentional, but once I did, I really, really enjoyed what I was reading.
"...when he was a baby, she had said, he cried all the time, he was colicky, I just never knew what to do with, that's what she used to say about Adam, I just never knew what to do with him..."
The story follows Randy, attempting to write a eulogy for his eldest brother while confronting the manner of his death and everything that led to it. In a stream-of-consciousness that is sometimes frustratingly fragmented, Palmer paints the story of the four Green brothers (Adam, Willie, Randy, and Evan) growing up under absentee parents, in a world of conflict, violence, rivalry, and tenuous safety. The novel explores family and perception, how different people can live inside different realities, and how memory can fracture and wound.
"...in her mind I had abandoned Adam, I had ignored him at a time when he needed me, it hurt me to hear that, of course, because a part of me saw it that way, too..."
It’s raw and real and confused and laden with grief. It’s not pretty, it’s not perfect, but it is very, very good. Beautiful and upsetting, it made me think about my own relationships with my siblings (markedly healthier than the Greens') and about questions that haunt many families: where do you lay blame, when do you set down guilt, and at what point is blood no longer thicker than water?
For readers who appreciated Sally Rooney’s style in Normal People or Conversations with Friends, Palmer’s unique prose might do the trick. I’ll be looking out eagerly for future work.
Thank you to Netgalley as well as Taag & Rohg for providing me with an ARC in exchange for an honest review.
4 and 1/2 stars (rounded up to five for Goodreads sake).
December 7, 2025
A Measured Portrait of Grief and Distance
Catbirds is a quiet and steady novel that follows a man trying to make sense of his brother’s death while confronting the years of distance that sat between them. The book moves through memory, regret and the uneasy mix of love and resentment that can shape family ties. What stands out is the honesty. The narrator never amplifies his feelings beyond what he can carry, which gives the story a restrained and convincing tone.
The strongest parts of the book sit in the final third. The writing becomes tighter, the emotional focus sharpens and the loss feels more immediate. The portrait of Adam’s decline is handled with patience and care. There is no spectacle, only the slow unravelling of a life that once held promise. It gives the story a weight that stays with you.
The weaknesses sit around the middle. The pacing drifts at times and certain memories repeat without adding much. Julia’s scenes have force but can tilt toward excess. The narrator’s distance also holds the book back from a fuller punch, which is part of the design but limits the impact in places.
Even so, this is a thoughtful novel that earns its ending. Readers who look for family stories told with restraint and emotional clarity will find something worthwhile here. It is not a showy book. It is a steady one, written with care and a clear sense of purpose.
Thank you NetGalley and Taag & Rohg for the digital review copy
Catbirds is a quiet and steady novel that follows a man trying to make sense of his brother’s death while confronting the years of distance that sat between them. The book moves through memory, regret and the uneasy mix of love and resentment that can shape family ties. What stands out is the honesty. The narrator never amplifies his feelings beyond what he can carry, which gives the story a restrained and convincing tone.
The strongest parts of the book sit in the final third. The writing becomes tighter, the emotional focus sharpens and the loss feels more immediate. The portrait of Adam’s decline is handled with patience and care. There is no spectacle, only the slow unravelling of a life that once held promise. It gives the story a weight that stays with you.
The weaknesses sit around the middle. The pacing drifts at times and certain memories repeat without adding much. Julia’s scenes have force but can tilt toward excess. The narrator’s distance also holds the book back from a fuller punch, which is part of the design but limits the impact in places.
Even so, this is a thoughtful novel that earns its ending. Readers who look for family stories told with restraint and emotional clarity will find something worthwhile here. It is not a showy book. It is a steady one, written with care and a clear sense of purpose.
Thank you NetGalley and Taag & Rohg for the digital review copy
September 23, 2025
A creative, captivating and moving story.
August 24, 2025
What do you owe a sibling you feared as a child, who mistreated you both as a kid and as an adult? What constitutes a family? In CATBIRDS, a debut novel by Ezra Palmer, these are the questions his middle-aged protagonist, Randy, grapples with when his older brother, Adam, a former Wall Street wheeler dealer, is found dead, floating facedown in the Housatonic River. Adam alienated everybody with his bellicose and litigious behavior and had not spoken to anyone in his family for years except Randy, who would reach out to him occasionally out of a sense of obligation. Every time, Adam never seemed happy to see him, even actively sneered at him, leaving Randy wondering why he even bothered.
Still, he organizes a memorial service to pay tribute to Adam. It’s the waning days of the COVID-19 pandemic, and we find Randy grappling with guilt, self-recrimination and anger at Adam as he waits for guests to arrive. He ruminates on his family, one that no longer exists. Adam is dead. Another brother, Willie, succumbed to AIDS years before, followed by his father, who died from Huntington’s disease. His mother, now remarried, barely talks to Randy.
Told from Randy’s perspective, this slim but potent literary novel is written as one long monologue, sans periods, question marks or even paragraph breaks, forcing the reader to read carefully. Slowly. That is not a criticism. This stream-of-consciousness style compels you to savor the compelling, magnetic prose. It’s a stylistic high-wire act which the writer balances with confidence. If you like authentic voices, sibling dynamics, and family drama, give CATBIRDS a read.
Thank you to #NetGalley for providing an ARC.
Still, he organizes a memorial service to pay tribute to Adam. It’s the waning days of the COVID-19 pandemic, and we find Randy grappling with guilt, self-recrimination and anger at Adam as he waits for guests to arrive. He ruminates on his family, one that no longer exists. Adam is dead. Another brother, Willie, succumbed to AIDS years before, followed by his father, who died from Huntington’s disease. His mother, now remarried, barely talks to Randy.
Told from Randy’s perspective, this slim but potent literary novel is written as one long monologue, sans periods, question marks or even paragraph breaks, forcing the reader to read carefully. Slowly. That is not a criticism. This stream-of-consciousness style compels you to savor the compelling, magnetic prose. It’s a stylistic high-wire act which the writer balances with confidence. If you like authentic voices, sibling dynamics, and family drama, give CATBIRDS a read.
Thank you to #NetGalley for providing an ARC.
August 31, 2025
Thanks to NetGalley for providing this ARC in exchange for an honest review—and boy, did they get one.
Catbirds by Ezra Palmer is like that relative who shows up uninvited to Thanksgiving dinner, drinks too much wine, and tells the same stories over and over again while somehow making you glad they came. It's not pretty, it's definitely not polished, but there's something oddly compelling about the whole chaotic mess.
Our "hero" Randy is about as reliable a narrator as a GPS with a dead battery. He spends most of the book circling around his feelings about his dead brother Adam like a confused driver looking for a parking spot that doesn't exist. Adam, by all accounts, was the kind of person who could start an argument in an empty room and somehow lose—a former Wall Street hotshot who managed to alienate literally everyone, including the mailman (probably).
Palmer's writing style is... well, let's call it "unconventional." It's like he took a perfectly normal novel and put it through a blender with a philosophy textbook and someone's diary. The repetitive language that initially made me want to shake the book and yell "WE GET IT!" eventually becomes hypnotic, like a weird literary mantra. Randy circles back to the same phrases and thoughts the way we all do when we're trying to figure out something that makes absolutely no sense—which, let's face it, is most family relationships.
The central question—what do you owe someone who treated you terribly but shares your DNA?—hits harder than a surprise therapy session. Randy's obligation-fueled phone calls to his sneering brother feel painfully real, like watching someone repeatedly touch a hot stove because "family is family."
Fair warning: this book is not for everyone. If you like your narratives neat and tidy, your prose conventional, and your characters likable, you might want to keep walking. This is literary fiction that comes with assembly required and possibly some missing parts. But if you're willing to lean into the weirdness, to let Palmer's repetitive rhythms wash over you like uncomfortable family memories, you might find yourself surprisingly moved by this meditation on duty, love, and the impossible mathematics of sibling relationships.
It's the kind of book that will either drive you absolutely bonkers or leave you thinking about it weeks later while doing dishes. I'm still not entirely sure which category I fall into, which is probably exactly what Palmer intended.
3.5 stars bumped to 4 because no one likes half stars.
Catbirds by Ezra Palmer is like that relative who shows up uninvited to Thanksgiving dinner, drinks too much wine, and tells the same stories over and over again while somehow making you glad they came. It's not pretty, it's definitely not polished, but there's something oddly compelling about the whole chaotic mess.
Our "hero" Randy is about as reliable a narrator as a GPS with a dead battery. He spends most of the book circling around his feelings about his dead brother Adam like a confused driver looking for a parking spot that doesn't exist. Adam, by all accounts, was the kind of person who could start an argument in an empty room and somehow lose—a former Wall Street hotshot who managed to alienate literally everyone, including the mailman (probably).
Palmer's writing style is... well, let's call it "unconventional." It's like he took a perfectly normal novel and put it through a blender with a philosophy textbook and someone's diary. The repetitive language that initially made me want to shake the book and yell "WE GET IT!" eventually becomes hypnotic, like a weird literary mantra. Randy circles back to the same phrases and thoughts the way we all do when we're trying to figure out something that makes absolutely no sense—which, let's face it, is most family relationships.
The central question—what do you owe someone who treated you terribly but shares your DNA?—hits harder than a surprise therapy session. Randy's obligation-fueled phone calls to his sneering brother feel painfully real, like watching someone repeatedly touch a hot stove because "family is family."
Fair warning: this book is not for everyone. If you like your narratives neat and tidy, your prose conventional, and your characters likable, you might want to keep walking. This is literary fiction that comes with assembly required and possibly some missing parts. But if you're willing to lean into the weirdness, to let Palmer's repetitive rhythms wash over you like uncomfortable family memories, you might find yourself surprisingly moved by this meditation on duty, love, and the impossible mathematics of sibling relationships.
It's the kind of book that will either drive you absolutely bonkers or leave you thinking about it weeks later while doing dishes. I'm still not entirely sure which category I fall into, which is probably exactly what Palmer intended.
3.5 stars bumped to 4 because no one likes half stars.
October 10, 2025
Actual rating: 3.75
A story about family and its intricate and complex dynamics, this short story is an easy read that explores an imperfect family where blood doesn't equal love.
Two years after Adam died, a memorial is being held and his brother, and narrator, struggles to compose a eulogy because he doesn't have many happy memories about his brother. While the main thread is the life of Adam, through flashbacks and reflections, the narrator manages to tell the story of their family, where love seems to have been a tricky thing to feel and show. I appreciated how the author has chosen to depict characters that are flawed and relatable, with their struggles in their relationships and the self-reproaching behavior that people often feel when they should care for someone because they are family, and yet they can't because that someone makes it difficult to do so. Moreover, mental and physical health issues are presented in a delicate and yet incisive way, which I truly admired.
The writing style is interesting, almost mimicking the jumps that a person's thoughts tend to do when reliving facts, assessing situations, and just going through emotions. Since it's a first person narrator, you're right with him through his spirals of thoughts and feelings, and while well-written and helpful to connect more with the story and the characters, sometimes it might feel a bit too difficult to follow, especially when the twists and turns are fast and quite a few.
Relatable, well-written, and intriguing, this story is perfect for those who love a shor story about family that feels real.
I'd like to thank the author, the publisher and NetGalley for the possibility of reading this ARC.
A story about family and its intricate and complex dynamics, this short story is an easy read that explores an imperfect family where blood doesn't equal love.
Two years after Adam died, a memorial is being held and his brother, and narrator, struggles to compose a eulogy because he doesn't have many happy memories about his brother. While the main thread is the life of Adam, through flashbacks and reflections, the narrator manages to tell the story of their family, where love seems to have been a tricky thing to feel and show. I appreciated how the author has chosen to depict characters that are flawed and relatable, with their struggles in their relationships and the self-reproaching behavior that people often feel when they should care for someone because they are family, and yet they can't because that someone makes it difficult to do so. Moreover, mental and physical health issues are presented in a delicate and yet incisive way, which I truly admired.
The writing style is interesting, almost mimicking the jumps that a person's thoughts tend to do when reliving facts, assessing situations, and just going through emotions. Since it's a first person narrator, you're right with him through his spirals of thoughts and feelings, and while well-written and helpful to connect more with the story and the characters, sometimes it might feel a bit too difficult to follow, especially when the twists and turns are fast and quite a few.
Relatable, well-written, and intriguing, this story is perfect for those who love a shor story about family that feels real.
I'd like to thank the author, the publisher and NetGalley for the possibility of reading this ARC.
September 7, 2025
Randy Green sifts through his memories of his difficult relationship with his older brother Adam, who died in somewhat mysterious circumstances two years before the book opens. Because the death happened during Covid, the memorial service was delayed, and now Randy is waiting for it to begin, trying to decide what he should include in the eulogy, and wondering whether anyone other than his mother will even come.
The novel is structured as a single internal monologue. It moves around in time quite a lot, and this could easily have been confusing, but the author did a good job of differentiating the changes in time. One of the techniques that helped with this was the narrator’s own repetitions. Randy turned out to be one of those people who kept repeating phrases to himself three or four times. At the beginning the repetitions added to the realism—after all, I think that’s how a lot of people process something, by going over and over and over it in their minds. And there is a lot to process. We get a real sense of the struggles of this family, and of Randy’s own insecurities through these repetitions and revisions.
There seemed to be much less repetition in the last third of the book, and I was of two minds about that. On the one hand, repetition was beginning to wear on me, but at the same time the shift away from it felt inconsistent with the character that Palmer had built for the reader. This inconsistency of pacing was my one significant criticism of the book.
It is a worthy debut novel, and I enjoyed it.
My thanks to Taag & Rohg Press and NetGalley for this ARC. Opinions expressed are my own.
The novel is structured as a single internal monologue. It moves around in time quite a lot, and this could easily have been confusing, but the author did a good job of differentiating the changes in time. One of the techniques that helped with this was the narrator’s own repetitions. Randy turned out to be one of those people who kept repeating phrases to himself three or four times. At the beginning the repetitions added to the realism—after all, I think that’s how a lot of people process something, by going over and over and over it in their minds. And there is a lot to process. We get a real sense of the struggles of this family, and of Randy’s own insecurities through these repetitions and revisions.
There seemed to be much less repetition in the last third of the book, and I was of two minds about that. On the one hand, repetition was beginning to wear on me, but at the same time the shift away from it felt inconsistent with the character that Palmer had built for the reader. This inconsistency of pacing was my one significant criticism of the book.
It is a worthy debut novel, and I enjoyed it.
My thanks to Taag & Rohg Press and NetGalley for this ARC. Opinions expressed are my own.
September 22, 2025
Catbirds, by Ezra Palmer, is a study in lack of communication within a dysfunctional family. The story takes place one hour before the memorial service for the eldest son Adam who drowned, alone and friendless, in a dirty back channel. He was a bully who was feared by his brothers, disliked by his mother who ignores her three eldest boys, and rarely remembered by his father. After reaching goals for success, i.e. captain of the high school football team, acceptance into Yale, a high powered position on Wall Street, Adam loses his wife, his mansion in Greenwich, and his securities license due questionable business practices and bad temper.
The narrator of Catbirds is his brother Randy, on whose shoulders it falls to deliver a eulogy. He grapples with what to say because of their stormy relationship in their youth. Randy feared his older brother, who mercifully left home and never came back after high school. To assuage his conscience about the lack of communication, Randy contacts Adam every couple of years, but the reunions are fraught with conflict. None of the rest of the family ever contacts Adam and won't miss him.
Catbirds is written as a stream of consciousness that follows Randy's reminiscence from his arrival at the library where he frets about his eulogy and the worry that no one with show up for the service. He relives the family's past, including his older brother Willie due to AIDS, brings out hundreds of mourners and their mother's abandonment of her ailing husband. This is a family that you are happy not to be a part of but Catbird is an interesting read.
The narrator of Catbirds is his brother Randy, on whose shoulders it falls to deliver a eulogy. He grapples with what to say because of their stormy relationship in their youth. Randy feared his older brother, who mercifully left home and never came back after high school. To assuage his conscience about the lack of communication, Randy contacts Adam every couple of years, but the reunions are fraught with conflict. None of the rest of the family ever contacts Adam and won't miss him.
Catbirds is written as a stream of consciousness that follows Randy's reminiscence from his arrival at the library where he frets about his eulogy and the worry that no one with show up for the service. He relives the family's past, including his older brother Willie due to AIDS, brings out hundreds of mourners and their mother's abandonment of her ailing husband. This is a family that you are happy not to be a part of but Catbird is an interesting read.
October 30, 2025
Catbirds takes place at Randy’s memorial for his pugnacious brother, Adam, whose mysterious circumstances of death unsettles Randy, particularly given their fraught history. The narrative is a stream-of-consciousness of what goes through Randy’s head before the memorial starts, and takes the reader back — through their childhood, their distant adult lives, and Randy’s investigation into Adam’s final years. His thoughts cover various regrets and unanswered questions, and meander through family memories, often tense and bittersweet.
This slim book delightfully surprised me. I am skeptical of stream-of-consciousness prose (see: how long it is taking me to get off the ground with Ducks, Newburyport), but it’s very well done here. Some of the lines are repetitive, but it strikes me as authentic to Randy’s wandering manner of thinking.
Overall, I found it touching and very readable. I’d love to get my hand on a physical copy!
Thank you to NetGalley and Taag & Rohg Press for the ARC.
This slim book delightfully surprised me. I am skeptical of stream-of-consciousness prose (see: how long it is taking me to get off the ground with Ducks, Newburyport), but it’s very well done here. Some of the lines are repetitive, but it strikes me as authentic to Randy’s wandering manner of thinking.
Overall, I found it touching and very readable. I’d love to get my hand on a physical copy!
Thank you to NetGalley and Taag & Rohg Press for the ARC.
August 28, 2025
In this remarkable first novel, Palmer explores the deep, complex, and often difficult ties of family. As Randy untangles what led up to his brother’s death—and his own possible role—it raises old issues of obligation, expectation, and loyalty. Ultimately, Catbirds is a luminous exploration of the boundaries of loss and love: What do we owe our parents? Our siblings? Our spouses? And how far does that go when one’s own survival—or sanity—is at stake?
Told through Randy’s thoughts in the moments before his brother’s memorial service is about to start, the answers unfold in a compelling and moving way that is both original and universal. Highly recommend.
Told through Randy’s thoughts in the moments before his brother’s memorial service is about to start, the answers unfold in a compelling and moving way that is both original and universal. Highly recommend.
Displaying 1 - 12 of 12 reviews