SWIFT

SWIFT

By Melinda Ferguson

Pages

231

Rating

4.31

Year

2026

MemoirGriefSouth Africa

Description

“Moving, fearless and unforgettable. Swift does what the very best books do: brings us into the beating heart of our humanity.” - Craig Higginson

Written in the six weeks following the sudden death of Mat, Ferguson's soul mate, Swift is a memoir that unfolds, breath by breath, as the narrator moves through shock, fury, unspeakable sorrow, and an almost mythic sense of responsibility to save the life of a Swift, which she rescued seven days before her beloved left Earth.

She somehow keeps the half-dead Swift alive through the blur of grief, but she has no real clue what she's doing. Mat was the one who knew all about birds. He was the man with the heart of feathers who identified the rescue bird as a Little Swift when she brought it home. Mat told her many things about the bird: that it never touches the ground, that it eats, sleeps, drinks, and mates on the wing, and that it is a bird that can fly for up to two years without landing.

In the aftermath of his shocking departure, and all its absurd bureaucratic requirements, an unlikely long-distance Swift guide appears in Ferguson's DMs on old Twitter. Her name is Hannah, a hardcore Swift activist from the UK. Ferguson is mesmerized by the Swift Queen's ethereal beauty and the tattoos of Swifts across her back.