This is an honest account of what happens when a teenage boy discovers that his mother is a lesbian. It’s written in a reflective style, with a heavy dose of sarcastic insight and truthfulness about the ways that this revelation affects himself, his development and his eventual sexual identity. It also holds a mirror up to his terrible behaviour towards his mother and asks some serious questions about honesty in a family.

Troy Johnson’s candid and personally caustic autobiographical style is kept chirpy by his endless disclosure of what was actually going though his mind during this difficult and disturbing period of him growing up.  The actual events seem to be just a backdrop to his own emotional rollercoaster journey and he is spot on with his descriptions of suburban delinquency, blame and shame and the way the sex-obsessed developing teenage male mind can twist just about anything to fit it’s testosterone distorted world view.

Johnsons story flips back and fore from present day reflections about his metro/hetro sexuality to his time as a teenaged rabid bigot and teases out the reasons for this change whilst serving up some very funny anecdotes and dissections of the politics of sexual identity.  He is obviously a man who has thought a lot about sexual identity and the ways that many women in the 60’s, 70’s and present day try to influence the development of their children with feminist theology. It’s an interesting way of looking at things and any gay mother who has brought up a boy would do well to read this book, for the snorts & laughs of recognition if not for any helpful insights.

Johnson’s story is a product of it’s time and place but then all autobiographical writing is, what he manages to do very well is to bring his own difficult upbringing into the light, hold it up, shake as many laughs out of it’s telling as possible and then seek the redemption of understanding.   He opens the book by telling us how much he loves his mother, the next 80 pages show us how much he tried to make her life (and his own) a living bigoted hell, before eventually growing up and morphing into a Pride going mature adult.

This is ultimately a memoir about salvation, forgiveness and acceptance (always my favourite type) and Johnsons searing honest grasp of his own middle American truth reminded me of Augusten Burroughs, just with perhaps a little more candour.

Issues of gay parenting are always being discussed and this book shows what’s it’s really like for a straight boy to discover that a parent is gay. All served up with a side order of sarcasm and extra laughs.

Hardback Out now £15.99
From the publishers website here
Or from all good bookshops.