The Birds Began to Sing

Jeffrey Buchanan

$34.99

Paperback

In stock
Ready to ship

QTY:

English

Text Publishing Company
26 August 2025

Fiction & Literature; Modern & contemporary fiction (post c 1945); Crime & Mystery

Reggie was still missing after five days, and Gladys Harris was saying things about him that quivered in my mind, which now, four years later, I see as being that opening sentence leading me to this burden of what happened to Reggie Kingsley.

In the harbour city of New Plymouth in the 1960s there’s a fizz of seedy sexuality beneath a veneer of respectability. Godfrey’s world is the Balmoral Hotel his parents own, where visiting sailors drink and local fringe-dwellers congregate.

When Reggie, the openly gay barman, goes missing Godfrey senses something sinister. There’s a prevailing attitude of inevitability. Godfrey doesn’t get it, but he’s hungry to understand. Guided by his daytime-television and pulp-fiction detective heroes and a very active imagination, he attempts to solve the mystery—in the process stumbling into his own sexual adventures and discovering a new-found power in a perplexing adult world.

The Birds Began to Sing delves into a world of shadows, nods and unspoken understandings with a warmth and humour that make this novel a delight.

By: Jeffrey Buchanan
Imprint: Text Publishing Company
Country of Publication: Australia
Dimensions: Height: 234mm, Width: 153mm, Spine: 1mm
Weight: 1g
ISBN: 9781923058439
ISBN 10: 1923058436
Pages: 352
Publication Date: 26 August 2025
Audience: General/trade , ELT Advanced
Format: Paperback
Publisher's Status: Forthcoming

Jeffrey Buchanan has written five novels concerned primarily with LGBTQI+ issues, Sucking Feijoas being his first. He worked in international development for thirty years and lives with his husband on a remote stretch of beach in North Canterbury in New Zealand's South Island.