Jeffrey Buchanan’s Gifkins Award-winning novel, The Birds Began to Sing, is precious, tender, and sombre. Exploring many queer themes like homosexuality, transexuality, internalised homophobia, identity, and living in a world where homosexuality is a crime, this novel is full of many heartfelt moments, revelations, and complexities that make it not only a standout novel, but one that will become a queer classic in the years to come.

Reggie was still missing after eight days, and Gladys Harris was saying things about him that quivered in my mind. In the harbour city of New Plymouth in the 1960s there’s a fizz of seedy sexuality beneath a veneer of respectability. Godfrey’s world is the Balmoral Hotel his parents own, where visiting sailors drink and local fringe-dwellers congregate. When Reggie, the openly gay barman, goes missing Godfrey senses something sinister. There’s a prevailing attitude of inevitability. Godfrey doesn’t get it, but he’s hungry to understand. Guided by his daytime-television and pulp-fiction detective heroes and a very active imagination, he attempts to solve the mystery-in the process stumbling into his own sexual adventures and discovering a new-found power in a perplexing adult world. The Birds Began to Sing delves into a world of shadows, nods and unspoken understandings with a warmth and humour that make this novel a delight.

Content warning: The Birds Began to Sing contains reference to Lolita, reference to suicide, the incarceration of homosexuals, and explicit sexual scenes, including scenes between adults and minors. The minors in question are giving their consent, but the topic and themes can still be no-goes fo some readers. Please consider whether or not you truly wish to read this books knowing of these warnings.

The Birds Began to Sing is definitely a coming-of-age story, especially in the context of identity and understanding for the main character Godfrey. It is still a crime mystery, but there are a lot more themes and plot elements to this than just a simple crime mystery novel. I was actually planning on reviewing this book for Spooktober, but the significance and focus of the book doesn’t lend itself well to being a simple October scary read. Moreover, a story with a young boy’s sexuality and identity at its core deserves so much more than to be grouped in with my Spooktober reads (nothign wrong with any of the books in my Spooktober collection, but I feel The Birds Began to Sing is more than the queer crime mystery it is promoted as.

There are a lot to sensitive topics, details, and character backgrounds in The Birds Began to Sing, and I knew there would be having read other LGBT+ works like the Evander Mills Mystery Series by Lev AC. Rosen, Giovanni’s Room by James Baldwin, and even Seth Dickinson’s queer adult fantasy The Traitor Baru Cormorant. I am happy to see a New Zealand book be added to this list, especially considering it brings queer history to life and showcases what living as a homosexual was like in Aotearoa New Zealand in the 1960s. It is such a significant novel, and I can see why it won the Michael Gifkins’ Award in 2024.

The Birds Began to Sing is a must-read for those wishing to see the LGBT+ experience in historical fiction, but also for those wanting to better understand the struggles and restrictions of queer individuals in a society that demonises and criminalises them. If you are okay with the content warnings, I implore you to read this as soon as possible.