David is a scout. For ten years he has plundered the ruins of an alien civilisation about which he knows nothing. Now his contract is ending, and he's ready to go home, a wealthy, successful man.
Except that everything seems to be slipping out of his control. His mentor Tom vanished on a recent expedition. David doesn't know what has happened to him. And, as he waits for the ship that will take him away, he begins to question the choices he has made.
That's when he is visited by a researcher, a specialist in non-human societies. She has travelled far to learn about this strange world and wants to hire David as her guide. One more expedition, one more trip to the rainswept wasteland of the plateau—and he can go home at last, rich beyond his dreams.
But he comes to realise that he may yet lose everything, as he is drawn inexorably towards an encounter with the terrifying soul of this world. John Morrissey's Bird Deity is a novel like no other. At once disconcerting and eerily familiar, it's a cosmic horror story about power, theft, love, loss, and destiny.
John Morrissey is a Melbourne writer of Kalkadoon descent. His work has been published in Overland, Voiceworks, Meanjin and the anthology This All Come Back Now. He was the winner of the 2020 Indigenous Writers Mentorship and the runner-up for the 2018 Nakata Brophy Prize. His debut story collection Firelight won the Queensland Literary Awards Steele Rudd Award for a Short Story Collection, 2024 and Best Collection in the Aurealis Awards, 2023. Firelight was shortlisted for the Victorian Premier's Literary Award for Fiction, 2024 and both the Indigenous Writers' Prize and UTS Glenda Adams Award for New Writing in the NSW Premier's Literary Awards, 2024. John Morrissey was named one of the Sydney Morning Herald Best Young Novelists of 2024. Bird Deity is his first full-length novel.
'Bird Deity is a spare and moving story about the burden of history and the vicissitudes of the colonial project. Morrissey's novel has a dignified, undeniable power. It's like Coetzee in space. I devoured it.' Dominic Amerena
'Here is a sharp and compelling new voice in Australian fiction...I read Firelight breathlessly.' Jennifer Down on Firelight
'Firelight introduces us to a young writer with a dedication to the craft of short fiction. Each of John Morrissey's stories is a gem, while the collection as a whole is superb.' Tony Birch on Firelight
