Firebird: A Memoir

It's not always a pretty story, but it's always intellectually and emotionally moving. Mark Doty is one of America's finest writers of poetry and prose. That such a mind should have triumphed over his stressful growing up years is remarkable. His background would have landed many other kids in a foster home. Firebird is a coming-of-age memoir of a pre-gay geeky kid with a deranged and alcoholic mother, a passive/conflicted father, and a sister whose middle name is Trouble.Firebird is beautifully written, revealing how a person who lives in a world of art, music, and literature rose from the ashes of his youth like the proverbial Phoenix of legend. It could easily have been titled Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, but somebody got to that one first.

For several years I had read favorable reviews of Mark Doty's work and wondered if this writer was "that Mark Doty"--the smartest boy in my junior high school, the one we voted "Most Likely to Succeed."My curiosity got the better of me when Firebird was released, since it is autobiographical, and yes, it is that Mark Doty. Those junior high years were but a blip on the screen of Mark's life (chapter seven), but his memories and descriptions of the place and the same people I knew are spot on. This book, however, is so much more than a snippet of shared history. There is nothing I could say about this book that would accurately describe its impact on me--all of my words would be an understatement.Mark Doty's work is fine art. His prose and the structure work beautifully together. This is not another package of self-pity in which the author is intentionally pulling up emotions. Yes, I cringed and felt outrage at some of the most uncomfortable parts, but the writer soothed me and reassured me that where there is art, there is a home, a place in the world--like that which Petula Clark sings about in "Downtown."I am proud of and pleased for Mark Doty's outstanding literary achievements. I also thank him for having the courage to write this book. Many of us who are fortunate enough to have read it are grateful and forever changed through the experience of his work of art.I recommend it to anyone who is gay, straight, or undecided.

This is an interesting and succinct memoir of an unusual childhood. When I saw it at the library I thought, "Oh, Okay . . . another book about some writer's childhood." But I grabbed it anyway thinking that it might be fun reading a sort of autobiography of a person with whom I an totally unfamiliar. I ended up enjoying it. Doty is only a little older than me - but his childhood was amazingly different than mine. Sometimes it was hilarious - like the description of his mild contempt for his fellow dance school student. Or his getting caught dressed in drag practicing show tunes in his room. At other times it was terribly sad and pathetic - his mother's end, for example. Parts of it left me a little astonished - "Huh? His parents dropped him of on the highway so he could hitch to San Francisco at age fourteen?" After reading his intriguing childhood memoir I will certainly be reading some of Doty's poetry.

In his memoir, Mark Doty says, "The older I get, the more I distrust redemption; it isn't in the power of language to repair the damages." Though I agree with Doty's thought-prevoking statement, I would also venture to say that the power of this book, though it does not attempt to sugar-coat the past, does make of what is difficult a thing of beauty. Poet Mark Doty has a uniquely adept ability to find beauty in the most tragic of events, not in a way that minimizes, but ironically, in a way that points them up even more clearly. For it is those events that shape us, Doty says, like it or not, and we cannot run from them, we can only claim them.This memoir is brave and honest, profound and wise, beautifully and powerfully written. I believe my life more rich for having read it.

This is a beautiful memoir. I admit I was attracted to the cover: the author's picture was totally adorable. In fact, after reading the book I can honestly say he is one of the few writers I have ever really wanted to meet, because I felt as if I was reading the autobiography of a dear friend.My heart broke when I realized that his first foray away from home, to the big city of San Francisco, dropped off by his parents on the highway, was at AGE FOURTEEN! I thought, what kind of parents would allow their child to go out into the world alone like that? I also felt sad when he realized, fully, that his parents didn't "see" him anymore, that he was something of a ghost in his home, being "allowed" to nest there.I had to laugh when his father said he could get a job at a casino if "the professor thing" didn't work out, and the man's non-sequitor conversations with his son. It reminded me of my father. When I was in my mid-thirties I told him I felt suicidal over a recent romantic loss. "Gee, the price of real estate is going up around here!" he exclaimed.I, too, am writing a memoir, so Mr. Doty's unusually poignant and open-hearted one was very helpful. He's a wonderful storyteller.Thanks to the author. e-mail: [email protected] if he's ever going to be in Santa Fe.