What is the tone in the memoir, Firebird?

There is a vividly and evocatively poetic quality about the author’s writing throughout the book. Even though it is a memoir (which is, by definition, concerned with events of the past), the book is only partially a chronology – that is, a narration of things happening in the order in which they happened. More significantly, it is also a collage, in which aspects of the author’s later life juxtapose with memory and with image to define meaning for the author and to communicate that meaning to the reader, all of which are defined by his essential poetic sensibility. This, in turn, defines the book’s central tonal qualities: contemplative and questioning, with what answers or conclusions the author reaches defined not by outright statement or certainty, but by a soft-edged sense that this MIGHT be the meaning … there are always other possibilities.