Firebird is a memoir by American poet Mark Doty. The memoir takes place mostly in the 1960s and covers Doty's life from ages six to sixteen, which he spent in Tennessee, Arizona, and other parts of the American South.
Firebird has been regarded as a "gay coming-of-age" story featuring a "boy who is neither terribly masculine nor overtly feminine, who is drawn to the arts and is able to lose himself in a world of his own devising as he reads, writes, paints or listens to music." Its references to Doty's emerging sexuality are subtle, but still provide important context for Doty's perceptions of himself and interactions with those around him.
The memoir also recounts key aspects of Doty's turbulent home life: his family moved around quite often due to his father's job as an Army engineer; his mother had long struggled with mental health issues and alcoholism which in turn damaged Doty's own mental health.
Firebird was published three years after Doty's first memoir, Heaven's Coast, which chronicles Doty's experience following his lover being diagnosed with AIDS. Both memoirs received the American Library Association's Israel Fishman Non-Fiction Award. His third and most recent memoir, Dog Years, was published in 2005 and also became an award-winning bestseller.
