Book Review: Dirty Birds by Morgan Murray

If you’re looking for an extremely funny and quintessentially Canadian book to brighten the undoubtedly dark months ahead, I highly recommend you pick up Morgan Murray’s debut novel Dirty Birds.

Set in 2008, Dirty Birds takes its reader on an unpredictable and imaginative romp through the life-choices of Milton Ontario (not to be confused with Milton, Ontario—a joke with more life than you’d expect), a 24-year old from Saskatchewan who decides to move to Canada’s most artistic city, Montreal, to pursue a “career” as a poet. Just like Leonard Cohen. As anyone who has been a 24-year old can imagine, things don’t exactly go as planned. What I found so delightful about this novel is that every ridiculous twist and turn of plot is unexpectedly influenced by and interwoven with other threads of Milton’s misguided adventures. No plot detail is wasted. Dirty Birds is an outrageous comedic quilt of chaos wrapped around an endearing and clueless anti-hero.

Quite simply, Dirty Birds is funny, clever and impossible to put down. What I enjoyed most was the detail with which Murray writes. Murray has the keen observational eye of a comedian, and the shrewd ability to convey the minutiae of disaster in a way that makes each vividly absurd moment of this book so fun to read. 

I could watch an entire television series of Milton Ontario—again, the person, not the place—stumbling his way throughout Montreal, getting involved and caught up in the misadventures of Murray’s hilariously tragic characters. His misguided-yet-human efforts to pursue the girl he loves and the career he wants makes Milton the perfect protagonist for a dark comedy that I would love to see come to life on screen. 

This book is some of Canadian humour at its finest. What a joy to read. I can’t recommend this book enough!

Dirty Birds was released August 7, 2020 by Breakwater Books.
Purchase the book here.