This vivid and strikingly witty novel examines the contradictions between the public face and the private experience as told through the eyes of a young boy's experience watching his eccentric aunt and uncle move through 1980s London.

Bert, a sharp-witted eighteen-year-old with a slight stutter, tries to make sense of the grown-up world around him; a colorful crowd of television personalities, politicians, pop stars, and unconventional relatives. A nephew to the prime minister of England, he spends his days with his Aunt Mavis, an alcoholic often found drinking in the nude, and his Trotskyite girlfriend, all while being followed by his uncle's security men. With the help of his laconic psychoanalyst, Bert questions the relation between exterior and interior reality, and languages' ability to convey these connections. Imago Bird is a wildly humorous coming-of-age novel that questions art's ability to communicate these different realities.