Buddy: How a Rooster Made Me a Family Man

Content warning: for those who just wanted a fun book about a guy doing battle with a rooster, McGrory starts out by dedicating a good chunk of the beginning of the book to his awesome dog, Harry, who gets very sick and he has to put to sleep. I had just put my cat to sleep a few short weeks ago and found myself sobbing while reading that section in public.

I really enjoyed this book, despite my crying jag. Harry's death led to a relationship with Harry's vet, who happens to also come with a suburban life, two kids, and a small menagerie. Buddy, the title rooster, comes along thanks to a science experiment from one of Pam's daughters. McGrory's trials and tribulations with the rooster mirror his own struggle to adjust to suburban and show more family life, after decades of living alone in the city.

This was a sweet and funny book. Though I was as befuddled by McGrory at the sheer amount of STUFF his soon-to-be step-daughters needed. I grew up and live in surburbia. I don't have kids but I have memories of when I was a kid and I certainly didn't have $200 birthday cakes or extravagant birthday parties. Weird.

Review copy courtesy of the publisher via Goodread's First Reads program show less

Anyone who knows anything about me knows that I do not, I absolutely do not read books about animals. Am I an animal hater? Far From it. I love animals. Pretty much all animals are on my favorites list. Currently there are four cats and a dog in my home. My fur kids are aways rescues. I adore them all. I have had other dogs, other cats, a few rabbits, and the poor chameleon and ill fated mouse. I have been known to dress down folks I see mistreating animals or allowing them to be in harms way. I have badgered neighbors until they finally learned that keeping their pets indoors was much better for the cats, and kept the safe, and healthier for longer.

My reading friends know to warn me off of books that might upset me, when there are show more animals involved. I accept their kind advice and pass by books about cats in libraries or dogs on journeys and so forth. Dangerous ground, that. Where there are animals, there are people who lose animals to their inevitable death. I can't endure their pain, it reminds me too much of my own. Anyone who has had animals has felt that pain. The loss of a friend who loves you unconditionally and with complete abandon is pretty hard to ignore. Impossible in fact.

So why did I choose to read this book? Buddy, the rambunctious and sometimes obnoxious rooster seemed safe. I thought it would be okay. Also, I didn't ay attention. I saw that it was about a man, his journey to becoming a a family man and of course the family that brought him to that point in his life. I somehow missed the perfectly and completely obvious comment in the book description that Harry, a wonderful, loving, cheerful and loyal dog dies in this book. This is not a spoiler.. go ahead and read the book description. There it is for all to see. All except me. So be warned.

Brian sounds like a good man, a kind man and one who just wants to do the right thing, and to do it while having a happy life. Of course, he doesn't know how to make his life happy any more than the rest of us, but Harry helps him to find his way. It isn't unusual for a dog to make us happy. It's fairly common really. But Harry doesn't work alone. There are various animals, various people and many little bumps along the road. But in the end Brian learns something from Buddy. And what he learns is just possibly one of the secrets of the universe. So, go ahead and read it, don't be afraid. This is a story that will make you cry. This is also a story that will make you smile, hold your breath and sigh with relief. It's well worth the cry. show less

My uncle kept chickens when I was small. We'd go to visit him and be given the task of collecting eggs from the coop. This sounded like a great and fun thing to do until we remembered the rooster. He probably had a name but I don't recall it. All I know is that he was pure evil, gleefully attacking defenseless children. At least until we got smart and started wielding the 2x4 kept just inside the chickens' enclosure. A few swipes (and maybe a hit or two) as he charged and he was wary about pecking, buying us enough time to collect the couple of eggs and get out. It was with this image in my head and a whole lot of skepticism that I opened up Brian McGrory's new narrative non-fiction, Buddy: How a Rooster Made Me a Family Man.

The title show more and the cover are slightly misleading though as the book really details a large chunk of McGrory's life rather than being purely a memoir of his life with Buddy the rooster. Journalist McGrory was divorced and single, living in downtown Boston with his beloved dog Harry. He was an urbanite to the core and happy in his more than comfortable life in the city. His lovely, devoted golden retriever Harry was a joy with him for only ten short years, succumbing to cancer and leaving McGrory bereft. Through Harry's final illness, McGrory grows closer to Harry's vet Pam, finding her a sympathetic person and kindred spirit in the care of his much loved dog. It is only some time after Harry's death that Pam's marriage dissolves and she and McGrory ultimately fall in love. And that brings about the biggest changes in McGrory's life thus far: a move from the city to full-on suburbia, stepdaughters, and a menagerie of animals not of his own choosing, including Buddy the rooster.

Buddy does not like McGrory, aggressively attacking him to protect his flock (Pam and her girls). And the feeling is mutual, with McGrory disliking Buddy in equal measure. But more than his conflict with this territorial chicken, this is a memoir about compromise, the re-making of a family, the nature of devotion, and change at mid-life. While McGrory doesn't come off as particularly appealing here, the others in the book come off worse. Pam's daughters seem to be entitled, spoiled brats who are never called to account for their obnoxious behaviour. Pam, as a vet, is strangely oblivious not only to Buddy's needs as a chicken but over the top indulgent of his bad behaviour. McGrory himself spends a lot of time bemoaning the loss of his formerly uneventful and pleasant single life in the city and he portrays himself, perhaps unintentionally, as a doormat, subsuming his own happiness in lieu of keeping his new life on an even keel. There seems to be little to no recognition of this new marriage as a partnership. At least in the case of Buddy, it is all about Pam's love for this rather nasty seeming rooster. And that's exasperating as a reader.

Nothing about adding a new person to a family is easy, especially when the person being added has spent years on his own, living life without anyone to whom to be accountable, and ordering his existence with only a thought to his own happiness. But McGrory seems to head 180 degrees the other way in trying to forge a new married life with stepchildren It is all about Pam and the girls' happiness completely at the cost of his own. The third of the book that is a love letter to his dog Harry is lovely and heartfelt. His subsequent struggle to become part of a larger family is less lovely. All of it is well-written but the unevenness of interest in the narrative handicaps the book as a whole. That said, there is heart here and although I personally would have had fried chicken long ago with Buddy featuring as the main dish, it is interesting what McGrory claims to have learned from the obstreporous chicken and how he has changed (willingly) as a man and a husband as a result. Readers who enjoy any sort of pet memoir will find humor and pathos in equal measure here but readers looking for one that is centered solely on the chicken on the cover need to know that Buddy isn't really the main focus here. show less

Buddy: How a Rooster Made Me a Family Man by Brian McGrory
328 pages

★★★★

When I randomly picked up this book at the library, I wasn’t sure what to expect. I mean, the whole concept seemed a little cheesy to me, but what the heck. But right away I was sucked into Brian McGrory’s writing and lapped up his story of going from a man who had been single most of his life (except for a short marriage years before) in a large city to a man with kids, a fiancee, and A LOT of animals in the suburbs – including a rooster named Buddy. The author has a way of throwing his emotions out there and being honest which left me cracking up in some segments and tearing up in others. He has a habit of being very narcissistic and selfish at times show more but for the most part I found it charming. This really was a cute book, much more than just about a rooster (in fact many chapters have nothing at all to do with Buddy the Rooster) but about a past, a family and love. If you’re an animal lover, regardless of what kind, this may be a book to pick up. A surprisingly fun and quick read. show less

If the entire book had been about Harry the dog, I would have loved it. It was well written and easy to read. I was less than enchanted with the sections about Buddy. (I can't believe that their new neighbors were all that charmed by Buddy's unrelenting noise.) I also had a hard time with his new family. Shouldn't the well-being/sanity of someone you love be put before a rooster that, on occasion, drew blood? (Imagine if it had been a dog that tried to bite him every time they got near each other, or a dog that relentlessly barked day and night. Nobody would think that was charming or endearing.)

Buddy: How a Rooster Made Me a Family Man by Brian McGrory is a brilliant memoir about the reluctant transition a man must make from content autonomy of singlehood to the selflessness that’s required in a longterm relationship, the unexpected and ever-changing moods of children — and in this case, a house full of pets.

Brian McGrory’s experience as a writer and editor for the Boston Globe since the eighties has clearly given him an advantage in writing novels, which in Buddy, obviously showcases his natural ease in writing an effortless and an easily readable and enjoyable prose.

The writing is indicative of McGrory himself: intelligent, witty, thoughtful, and humble enough to be accommodating to those he cares about.

The history show more of his life-changing relationship with his beloved golden retriever, Harry, is especially genuine and heartfelt that readers, even professed non-dog lovers, will naturally feel a connection to this intelligent, loyal, and gregarious dog, and a deep appreciation for their exceptional relationship with one other.

In comparison, the reader may indeed get frustrated with Harry’s polar opposite, Buddy, the incessantly pecking and crowing, much beloved and spoiled, self-indulged, and self-important, territorial rooster of the family.

It seemed for much of the book that poor McGrory was not only outnumbered by females, animals, and decisions that often put him last; readers may have felt an undeniable empathy—even pity—for the man who reluctantly accommodated great change in his life because of his love and commitment to one woman in his conceding role as second husband, stepfather to two stepdaughters, and bewildered co-owner to 12 feisty animals: Baker, Walter, Charlie, Tigger, Lily, Dolly, Mokey, Lala, Smurf, Chaz, Buddy, and the nameless frog — in one boisterous household.

I certainly did.

The injustice of McGrory’s desires almost always put last in accommodation to please Pam, his wife, and her two daughters in their desire to appease, nurture, and indulge their beloved and domesticated rooster, Buddy, baffled and infuriated me.

While I couldn’t understand how one’s love for an animal could impede on the desires and needs of a family member like McGrory, the length in which the family accommodated this regal, strutting, pecking, and attacking, feathered bird was over and beyond any pet owner’s natural obligation.

But this family isn’t ordinary. Nor is their lifestyle, which accepted and fell in love with an animal that originally began as a school project.

To read the rest of my review, you're more than welcome to visit my blog, The Bibliotaphe Closet:

http://zaraalexis.wordpress.com/2013/03/12/book-review-buddy-how-a-rooster-made-...

Thanks,
Zara show less

A fun fast read – but pay attention to the subtitle – "How a rooster made me a family man". Don't expect a "Marley and Me" style book. Here the focus is much more on the author and his conversion from selfish single guy, to less selfish family guy, rather than on Buddy the rooster. It's well written, as you'd expect from someone who has been a reporter for the Boston Globe as long as McGrory has. My major complaint with the book is McGrory's frequent patting himself on the back for changing into a "true family man".