Fowl Play

Book excerpt: In Fowl Play, author Steven Leigh Morris weaves his two great passions in life: the theater and barnyard poultry. As print media crumbles around him, veteran Los Angeles theater critic Seth Jacobson hatches a flock of chickens and negotiates a fragile pact with his neighbors (and his sanity) to house them in the garden of his Hollywood condominium. In the throes of personal and professional erosion (Seth’s Russian wife has left California for her homeland, apparently never to return), Seth clings to his three hens and one noisy aggressive rooster as if they are family and objects of his unyielding devotion. In this complex fantasy and comedic microcosm of global conflict, all creatures (some with wit, some with wings), seek refuge in an acrimonious and often violent world.