WHY PEACOCKS?

Unplanned adventures raising peacocks.

As longtime GQ correspondent Flynn, a winner of the National Magazine Award, notes, it all started innocuously enough, with a text from a neighbor: “Any chance u guys want a peacock? No kidding!” His curiosity piqued, the adventure began, even though he had no experience raising peacocks and no previous desire to do so. When he saw the peacocks for the first time, he thought they were the “most magnificent creature I had ever seen.” Just a day earlier, he writes, “I hadn’t wanted any peacocks, and for the same reason I’d never wanted koalas or a narwhal: The idea had never occurred to me.” After seeing them, he decided to take home three. “A peacock…was a flicker of happy imagination,” he writes, “an impossibly magical creature escaped from a dewdrop of unicorns and wood nymphs.” Flynn shares the ups and downs of taking care of birds—including the chickens he already owned—and he interlaces his personal story with intriguing information about the history and science of the peacock and its representation in art and religion. The author also chronicles his travels, from a cathedral in New York to a castle in Scotland, to learn more about these spectacular birds. While at a meeting of the United Peafowl Association, he even met a man who had sold peacocks to Flannery O’Connor, known for having an affinity for birds. As readers follow Flynn’s journey, his clever insights and pleasing prose style will leave them alternating between moments of shock and bursts of laughter. In the last few chapters, however, the tone shifts into a more somber mode. The author follows a linear path to the end of his story, but he never fully comes to terms with the question posed by the title. Though not the most profound meditation, the book makes for pleasant reading, especially for bird lovers.

A unique journey punctuated with insight, humor, and lessons learned.