Our main character is Wizard, a Vietnam veteran who lives on the streets of Seattle. He goes by Wizard because he either doesn't remember his name or doesn't want to use it, I'm not sure. So far, all wizards we've met in the story are homeless, and they each have to follow their own rules. In Wizard's case, he must never have more than one dollar in his wallet, he must feed the pigeons and he must remain celibate. He also must tell anyone who asks him the truth.

We see Wizard going through a typical day, scavenging for food and influencing other people's lives for the better. We also meet a few of his "collegues", including Cassie, the woman who "recruited" him. She has a different body every time he meets her, and he's implied to have some kind of feelings for her.

At night, Wizard is attacked my a mysterious prsence calling itself "Mir". Mir shows Wizard a scene from his past, involving three boys slaughtering chickens and a rooster. Mir says Wizard was one of the boys, but he experiences the memories of all three and doesn't know which one he is. He manages to escape, but not before Mir wounds the cat that was sleeping nearby.

Bedraggled, Wizard seeks out Cassie and winds up in another world. Cassie occasionaly brings him there, but afterwards Wizard always finds himself questioning the reality of the experience. Cassie states that Mir is a grave threat to anyone. Also, she tells Wizard that he was the rooster in the memory...

So: who or what is Mir? I'm betting that Mir was one of the other boys. One of them was rather cruel and delighted to be killing chickens, so maybe he became much more evil and powerful over time. Or maybe that's too obvious. There's also the interesting question how much of what Wizard experiences is real, and how much is the product of a deluded mind.

Wizard is going through a rough few days. He is losing touch with his magic and loses his popcorn bag with the endless supply of popcorn, so he can no longer feed the pigeons. He is then apparently (it's a little unclear) tricked by Mir into expending the little magic he has left trying to disarm a man with murder in his heart. (Through his gift, he sees that the man carries a knife and wants to murder somebody. But after the struggle, the man gets away and Wizard reflects that he will just get another knife.)

Wizard then stumbles into a cathedral and has a flashback to his youth as an altar boy. Writers of course draw on their own experience when writing, and I wonder how much of Lindholm herself is in this scene.

Who or what Mir is is not yet revealed at this point. Beyond the fact that he is something from Wizard's past, we don't know anything. The story being at midpoint and Wizard at his most despairing, I say it's time we got some answers.

We get a series of encounters between Wizard and a woman named Lynda. Her first appearance is actually quite early in the novel, as a waitress who has to deal with her agressive ex-boyfriend Booth. Lynda buys Wizard food and drinks. Cassie appears in a few different forms to warn Wizard. Wizard is attacked by Booth, but manages to win and is then followed to his den by Lynda. After he breaks yet another rule (celibacy, of course), we get flashbacks to Wizard's past as a traumatized Vietnam veteran.

If I have to name a problem with this novel, it's that it feels so aimless at times. Early on, Mir is set up as a great threat, but in the last one hundred pages, he has barely been even mentioned. And what role do the three boys from the flashback play?

Cassie has warned Wizard that he has to atone for a sin, but not neccesarily his own. Is Mir connected to this sin, and is this sin connected to Vietnam? And how? There's something there I haven't figured out yet.

About forty pages to go. No sign of Mir. I have no idea where this is going, and quite frankly it's starting to get a little dull. Lynda causes a fire in Wizard's den, which he narrowly escapes. We get some more flashbacks to the time that he first became a wizard.

Wizard collapses in the street and is brought to Cassie's place by two of his fellow wizards. Cassie tries to talk sense into Wizard and reveals to him why his magic doesn't work any longer: he hasn't broken his rules, but the additional rules he has set himself. Remember what I daid about celibacy and not keeping more than one dollar? Those aren't actual rules. He set them himself because he knew he would fail them. Wizard and Cassie get intimate, then he sets off again, while Cassie is sure that he will not survive his fight against Mir.

Wizard and Mir finally square off. Wizard's magic is back, and suddenly Cassie is at his side to help him. Wizard calls on his pigeons who devour Mir. It is then revealed that Cassie broke her own rules to help Wizard, sacrificing her magic. She walks off and is not seen again.

Epilogue: The next year, Wizard and his fellow wizard Rasputin are eyeing a possible new recruit.

Final thoughts

So what do I make of Wizard of the Pigeons? This novel starts off strong, but gets gradually worse. I liked the central idea: there's magic in this world, but you have to follow strange rules to be able to use it. But the execution is flawed. Most of the book, Mir is so far in the background that he doesn't seem like a real threat at all. The part where Wizard has lost his magic drags on far too long.

Wizard's real name is revealed to be Mitchell Ignatius Reilly - take those initials and what do you get? It thus appears that Mir is a manifestation of Wizard's psychological troubles, given form by his magic. Still not sure what the flashback with the three boys is supposed to mean though.