"In her debut novel, Duston Spear brilliantly captures the ambiance and culture of Soho in its artistic prime, evoking the gender gaps and preening personalities in ways that are both insightful and funny." -Porter Aichele, author of Modern Art on Display: The Legacies of Six Collectors

"Bird Girl is an often touching and often incisive critique of the 1970s downtown art scene. As a Soho dweller for decades, I enjoyed the veiled references to artists, critics, and galleries and as a feminist activist I identified wholeheartedly with the protagonist, a young woman artist ill prepared for the hierarchal vicissitudes of the commercial art world who finally trades her victim status with her victimizer. Not a pretty picture, but Duston Spear was there then and knows the dirt." -Lucy R, Lippard, author of Moving Targets

"What price toxic apprenticeship? That's one question Duston Spear's novel Bird Girl explores from brilliant origin to entangled end." -Lisa Williams, author of The Hammered Dulcimer

"Bird Girl's eagle-eyed storyteller swoops below the surface of the Soho art scene of the 1970s. Her ladylike talons find purchase in a sexist world that is, by turns, hilarious, sexual, poignant, and cruel. The tale she spins shifts back and forth in time, enriched by thinly veiled portraits and her superb descriptive powers." -Judith E. Stein, author of Eye of the Sixties, Richard Bellamy and the Transformation of Modern Art