The Bird Room

The Bird Room is a contemporary, fast-paced, blackly comic story focusing on the lives of and interactions between four characters (Will, William, Alice and Helen) living in Manchester. William and Will are childhood friends but their lives have taken very different routes. William is voluntarily unemployed and obsessed with watching Internet porn, while Will is an up-and-coming artist, whose works use porn soundtracks. Alice brings focus into William’s life but she has a hazy (porn-related) past. Helen’s an actress - well, she wants to be, but she makes Internet porn with sleazy men instead. Both bizarre and ordinary events (again all involving sex) bring these characters together. The novel’s structure is deliberately fragmented as the book's events are recounted through the innermost thoughts of each character in turn. The disparate threads are brought together in a confusing conclusion that even includes split identity. Killen’s use of humour prevents The Bird Room from being just another post-modern novel about sex and alienation. This debut is a skillfully written treat; look out for Chris Killen.