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“I’ve killed three men, but I’m not a murderer.” From the moment Billy Wayne Bastrop utters those words, readers are pulled into a story that refuses easy answers. Born in rural East Texas and raised by his formidable Aunt Sunshine—a chain-smoking, serpent-handling Pentecostal—Billy grows up in a world thick with contradictions. Religion and superstition, loyalty and betrayal, violence and tenderness all collide in a landscape where every road seems to lead back to guilt and blood.

Marked by the loss of his arm in childhood and the absence of the father who abandoned him, Billy carries an acute sense of otherness. His adolescence unfolds in a town where the church and the courthouse wield equal power, where family histories are as heavy as the humid air, and where belonging comes at a cost. Haunted by memories that cling like ghosts and mistakes that shape his future, Billy flees in search of escape—but discovers that no distance can keep the past from following.

In the tradition of Southern Gothic, And Your Byrd Can Sing is a novel of extremes: fierce love and corrosive hate, dark humor and profound sorrow, cruelty and grace. Jim Roberts crafts characters who are as unforgettable as the East Texas piney woods themselves—flawed, raw, and utterly human. Beneath the grit and violence lies a yearning for connection, for truth, and for some form of redemption that might balance the scales of a life marked by loss.

Readers will leave the book not only gripped by Billy’s journey but also stirred to reflect on their own: on the stories families tell and the ones they hide, on how faith can both save and wound, and on the ways we carry our burdens into the lives we create. At once brutal and redemptive, And Your Byrd Can Sing offers an unforgettable meditation on the blood we inherit, the truths we claim, and the fragile hope that redemption is never entirely out of reach.

Paperback ISBN: 979-8-9933935-0-6
Ebook ISBN: 979-8-9933935-1-3

Early praise for And Your Byrd Can Sing:

“In And Your Byrd Can Sing, Jim Roberts conjures a world so instantly evocative that, from the novel’s very first page, readers are privy to and invested in the intimate pain and passion of Billy Balstrop—a boy who’s lost his mother, sister, and arm to tragedy and is hell-bent on tracking down his absent father, no matter the cost. From Texas to Ohio to Mexico, and through both unspeakable violence, desperate choices, and palpable shame, And Your Byrd Can Sing is a deeply moving, transfixing story full of hard, brave truths that underscore our universal longing for answers, redemption, and belonging.”

—Whitney Collins, author of Big Bad and Ricky & Other Love Stories

“An outstanding debut novel with brilliantly rendered storytelling and steeped in the essence of a place. Billy Bastrop will capture your heart, break it, and then capture it again.”

—John Matthew Fox, founder of Bookfox and author of I Will Call Your Name

“In the tradition of Southern Gothic, Roberts brandishes Flannery O’Connor grotesqueness to bring something akin to Cormac McCarthy’s Outer Dark into the sixties and seventies. Billy Bastrop has one arm, a handful of wits, and a whole lot of pain to drive him and his tail-finned Cadillac through the “collective smallness” of Korvus, Texas and Cincinnati, Ohio on his hunt for salvation. But this book knows that if a person like Billy deserves salvation for his sins (even if they have roots in the sins of another) it is a burden of proof. The atmospheric writing of this novel illustrates how the smallest towns can hold the biggest atrocities. Roberts will leave you bruised and battered. And he only needs one arm to do it.”

—Toby LeBlanc, author of Soaked and Dark Roux

“From the little East Texas town of Korvus to Cincinnati, Ohio’s Little Appalachia, Jim Roberts puts the dirty realism of U.S. poverty on a pedestal, not to worship, but to always keep in mind. And Your Byrd Can Sing is a bit of everything: bildungsroman, road story, action, mystery, but empathy and discovery are at its heart. Out of a long legacy of grit lit, Jim Roberts rises to the top. His writing doesn’t stay mired in cycles of poverty and violence; he offers the reader a little bit of faith, a load of compassion, and a glimmer of hope.” 

—Nick Rees Gardner, author of Delinquents And Other Escape Attempts

“Jim Roberts’ debut novel sings with vulnerability in the tradition of Flannery O’Connor’s “Good Country People,” complete with its own prosthetic limb. Southern quirkiness and coming of age meet in this study of contrasts: title word play, religion as comfort and manipulation, a boy with one-too-few arms and Hindu Shiva with many, Southern drawls and Indian accents, exotic spices and Camel smoke. And Your Byrd Can Sing is an unflinching look at blood and gained family, tempered by often-dark humor and its music backdrop – the Beatles, Patsy Cline, Hendrix, Merle Haggard, and a reindeer Christmas chorus.”

—Amy Cipolla Barnes, author of Child Craft, Ambrotypes, and Mother Figures