 Penguin Random House Audio presents Dirty Bird Blues by Clarence Major, forward by Yusuf Komenyaka, introduction by John Beckman, read for you by Dion Graham, forward. The Poetics of Scatological Insinuation Clarence Major knows and feels the blues, and his protagonist in Dirty Bird Blues, Manfred Banks, better known as Man, is a folk poet and singer who measures the heartline with a humbling down-home voice and an insinuating harmonica, as he conjures Big Bill or Charlie Patton. Man's daily life is riddled with bluesy innuendos, primed by half-pints of old crow, Dirty Bird, whiskey. His friend and accompanist, Solomon Thigpin, Solly, is his drinking buddy, who clutches his guitar like a half-lost lover. Both men seem indebted to old crow when they jam, but Man's lyrics are always searching for lines and rhymes that delve into ultra-realism and nature, and at times seek higher ground, daring to break the grip of a troubled heart and mind. The author, born in Atlanta, Georgia, moved with his mother to Chicago when he was ten. He was drawn to painting, then to poetry. This virtuoso compiled two dictionaries of African-American slang, and it is understandable how Major's intimate engagement with slang may have influenced the folkloric tone in Dirty Bird Blues. Under the shaping hand of such a discerning disciple, the lived and imagined flow together without missing a beat, feeling and living the blues. Peter astutely experiments with his verbal arsenal in this one-of-a-kind novel. This man knows how to make the sounds and cadences in language actually swing. Dirty Bird Blues opens on the south side of Chicago on Christmas Day, and the reader is immediately in the midst of urban drama and life-threatening realism. Hardly any time passes before Man finds himself in the lobby of a black hospital, his wound to buckshot pellets being bandaged by an inquisitive black nurse before he's taken outside and handcuffed by two relentless black cops he nicknames under his breath, bullfrog, and lizard. They laugh at his country-southern speech, and then take him on a ride, roughing him up in the back seat of their police car. Remnants of the great migration resound as the author captures urban destitution and defeatism. While Major reveals damaging constructs deep within the cultural psyche, he is never didactic, for he remains true to the voice of his protagonist. A thoughtful pacing of the novel exacts the movement of a man's life, of his mind. Man's lyrics, as they are conceived and sung. Sample complete. Ready to continue?