[Birdy] is so accomplished in style, so assured of its grip on the reader, that one can easily doubt whether it really is a first novel. William Wharton is a graceful yet powerful storyteller who makes us believe even when we resist. He forces us to use our imaginations and convinces us of his characters' ability to overcome their infirmities yet revel in their eccentricities. (p. 40)

Wharton has infused his story of boyhood escape with the harshest of realities. There is harrowing, graphic violence in the descriptions of battle and of the destruction of stray dogs witnessed by the boys while they are employed as dogcatchers one summer, and there is hatred (and much damage) perpetrated by Birdy's mother and Al's father. Almost by definition, first novels contain hesitancies, an unsureness when it comes to fully engaging the imagination. Birdy is extraordinary because it lacks any tentativeness; it...