The acclaimed authorâs memoir of life with an African grey parrot offers âa thoughtful and generous celebration of minds and bodies different from our ownâ (Times Literary Supplement, UK).  For thirty years, Brian Brett shared his office and his life with Tuco, a remarkable parrot given to asking questions such as âWhaddya know?â and announcing âParty time!â when guests showed up at Brettâs farm. Although Brett bought Tuco on a whim, he gradually realized the enormous obligation he has to his pet, learning that the parrot is far more complex than he thought.  In Tuco and the Scattershot World, Brett not only chronicles his fascinating relationship with Tuco, but uses it to explore the human tendency to âotherâ the world, abusing birds, landscapes, and each other. Brett sees in Tucoâs otherness a mirror of his own experience contending with Kallman syndrome, a rare genetic condition that made him the target of bulliesâand nurtured his affinity for winged creatures.  Brettâs meditative digressions touch on topics ranging from the history of birds and dinosaurs to our concepts of knowledge, language, and intelligenceâand include commentary from Tuco himself. By turns provocative and deeply moving, Tuco and the Scattershot World âis not a straight memoirâitâs something much more wondrously weird . . . a view of the human predicament that is hilarious, sobering and profoundâ (Globe \u0026 Mail, UK).
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