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The Fascinating Saga of the World's Most Revered and Reviled Bird
Grove Press
October 2006
On Sale: October 6, 2006
256 pages
ISBN: 0802118348
EAN: 9780802118349
Hardcover
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Non-Fiction
In the tradition of Robert Sullivan’s best-selling Rats
comes a whimsical and intimate look into the fascinating
world of pigeons and the people they collect. Pigeons have been worshipped as fertility goddesses and used
as symbols of peace. Domesticated since the dawn of man,
they’ve been used as crucial communicators in war by every
major historical superpower from ancient Egypt to the United
States and are credited with saving thousands of lives.
Charles Darwin relied heavily upon pigeons to help formulate
and support his theory of evolution. Yet, without just
cause, they are reviled today as “rats of the sky.” How did
we come to misunderstand one of mankind’s most helpful and
steadfast companions? Author Andrew D. Blechman traveled across the United States
and Europe to meet with pigeon fanciers and pigeon haters in
a quest to chronicle the pigeon’s transformation from
beloved friend to feathered outlaw. Pigeons captures a
Brooklyn man’s quest to win the Main Event (the pigeon
world’s equivalent of the Kentucky Derby), as well as a
pigeon breeders convention dedicated to breeding the perfect
bird. Blechman participates in a pigeon shoot where entrants
pay $150 to shoot live pigeons; he tracks down Mike Tyson,
the nation’s most famous pigeon lover, and spends time with
Queen Elizabeth’s Royal Pigeon Handler in England; and he
sheds light on a radical “pro-pigeon underground” in New
York City. In Pigeons, Blechman tells for the first time the
remarkable story behind this seemingly unremarkable bird.
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