Birds and Ghosts

Jess Richards's beloved father died suddenly at the age of sixty-seven in Scotland. Three months later, she travelled to Aotearoa New Zealand, to a new relationship. This is the story of her grief and her love, of a place lost and a place found, of a memory-packed past and a poised present.

Birds and Ghosts was written during the Covid-19 pandemic when international travel was impossible. In this achingly empty space, away from her family and her father's grave, Jess reconstructs her early life and ponders the self who is lonely, different, and invisible. A late diagnosis of Autism adds a conventional label to a uniquely personal portrait.

This intimate story edges the boundaries of fiction and nonfiction, poetry and prose, confident in its experimental style. It is memoir in a pure, unconstrained form, brave and beautiful, moving and utterly compelling.

From the author of Snake Ropes, Cooking