Cris Freddi

Metro review of Pelican Blood

The anonymous birdwatching narrator of Pelican Blood cares about birds so much he is prepared to kill those who get rich on the back of selling stolen eggs. Yet, lacking the artistic talent of both his best friend and girlfriend, and harbouring no ambition in life beyond his cleaning job, he struggles to find anything else worth living for. He has decided to end it himself once he has sighted 500 different birds.

Far from being a dry exposition on a minority pastime, Pelican Blood combines in its central character a scorching, militant passion for the environment with a strongly urban sense of nihilism, evoking a savage universe where the ruthless cycles and lonely beauty of the natural world feel far more meaningful than the cut-and-thrust emptiness of the civilised one. Freddi piles too much on to his narrative and some of his plotting is unstable, but this is an original, deeply felt novel whose raw lyricism feels powered by the forces of nature itself.

Claire Allfree, 9 June 2005