Tuco

The Parrot, the Others, and a Scattershot World

“[Brett’s] writing is so vivid, the observations so telling, that a reader can virtually feel the smooth heft of a collected egg in the palm of a hand or hear the goofy, honking dawn call of the peacock.” —Globe & Mail on Trauma Farm

A raucous biography of a remarkable parrot and an incisive exploration of how we relate to those who are different from us.

Both a biography of an irreverent African Grey parrot—given to asking “Whaddya know?” and announcing “Party time!”—and an exploration of the history of birds/ dinosaurs, the relationships between humans and birds, our notions of language and intelligence, and our tendency to “other” anything that is different from us, Tuco also describes Brett’s own painful experience of being othered as an androgyne. Provocative, profound, hilarious, and moving, Tuco is most of all the extraordinary story of Brett’s decades-long relationship with this singular bird, what Brett calls “a story we made together.”