Wearing Alison - Confessions of a fairys daughter: growing up with a gay dad

With great skill and tenderness and a gorgeously wicked sense of humor, Alison Wearing tells her familys story from every angle, allowing all to speak with their own voices. This is an important historical documenta portrait of gay life in the 1980s with its bravely fought battles for equalitythat doesnt flinch from showing the collateral damage of homophobia, which still today affects and afflicts the families of so many who are struggling to come out. But its also a timeless memoir written by a loving daughter who is finding her own way in the world and learning about the need we all have not just for acceptance, but for true understanding.

Will Schwalbe, author of The End of Your Life Book Club

Confessions of a Fairys Daughter had me in tears: first of laughter, then of sadness, then of wonder at lifes strange and marvelous fragility. It is a book both beautiful and true; about the longing for family and for home. Alison Wearing is a hugely talented writer.

Alison Pick, author of Far to Go, longlisted for the Man Booker Prize

This exquisitely written and deeply compassionate memoir tells the story of a family and a nation at a turning point in their sexual and political awakening. The scope of events and emotions may be operatic, but Alison Wearing captures them all in details that are intimate yet revealing, heartbreaking yet joyous. This is a book for every daughter who loves her father and for everyone who chooses to live (and love) openly and freely.

Kamal Al-Solaylee, author of Intolerable: A Memoir of Extremes, finalist for the Hilary Weston Writers Trust Prize for Nonfiction

Alison Wearing is blessed with the eye of a lyric poet, the ear of a comic novelist, and a heart capacious enough to tell a complicated love story. Confessions of a Fairys Daughter caught me from the beginning and held me until its touching conclusion.

Katherine Ashenburg, author of The Dirt on Clean and The Mourners Dance

Part memoir, part history book, part diary and all parts heart. Alison Wearing weaves a tale that celebrates the complexities of who we are and the families we hold close. Confessions of a Fairys Daughter is painful, tender, poignant andmost importantbeautifully honest.

Brian Francis, author of Natural Order

Confessions of a Fairys Daughter is a universally appealing memoir about everything that matters in a family and to a person. It will appeal to you if you have a gay parent or a straight parent or any parent. If you have a child or were once a child. If you are passionately interested in social history or all you really want is a compelling, beautifully written story with just the right mix of everythingcompassion, discovery, recovery, the occasional (OK, on one occasion) accidental ingestion of hallucinogens on Christmas Day, music, humour, grace.

Jamie Zeppa, author of Every Time We Say Goodbye and Beyond the Sky and the Earth

HONEYMOON IN PURDAH: AN IRANIAN JOURNEY

PUBLISHED BY ALFRED A. KNOPF CANADA

Copyright 2013 Alison Wearing

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the publisher, except by a reviewer, who may quote brief passages in a review. Published in 2013 by Alfred A. Knopf Canada, a division of Random House of Canada Limited, Toronto. Distributed in Canada by Random House of Canada Limited.

www.randomhouse.ca

Knopf Canada and colophon are registered trademarks.

Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication

Wearing, Alison, 1967
Confessions of a fairys daughter : growing up with a gay dad / Alison Wearing.

eISBN: 978-0-345-80761-8

1. Wearing, Alison, 1967. 2. Wearing, Joe. 3. Children of gay parentsCanadaBiography. 4. Gay fathersCanadaBiography. 5. Fathers and daughters. I. Title.

HQ 777.8. W 43 2013 306.874208664 C 2012-907990-1

Cover design by Kelly Hill

Images: Courtesy of the author

v3.1

for my father

because my father lived his soul

love is the whole and more than all

ee cummings

Partway through the writing of this book, I called my father to ask if he and I could have a cup of tea together and talk about a few things.

Sure, that would be terrific! he replied, his voice bouncing with enthusiasm, so I travelled into Toronto a few days later with a notebook in my bag.

My dad knew I was writing a book about growing up with a gay father. I had sent him early drafts of the first chapters, and while he had squirmed initially, asking if I wouldnt mind waiting until he had gone dotty before I published anything, he agreed that it was indeed an important story and would do well to be out in the world.

He just wished it didnt have to focus so much on him.

I arranged for us to talk because I had reached a bit of an impasse, having written all the scenes that I knew were important to telling my side of the story and feeling the need to broaden the narratives perspective. I knew little about my fathers early adulthood, except what one gleans from passing mentions of university days and commentary on old photos, so I had questions about that period of his life. And I knew that he had come out during the vanguard of the gay revolution in Canada and I wondered if tying his story into that cultural and political history would give the book the wider vision I was seeking.

So we had tea. Earl Grey, I believe, with milk. And toast with Marmite. Between sips and bites, I asked him about his childhoodwhen did he first have the hots for a boy?about his years at universitydid his time at Oxford, the stomping grounds of Oscar Wilde (among others), give him the freedom to consider the possibility that he might be gay?and about the gay revolution in Canadawas he at the famous Toronto bathhouse raids protest and what was it like? We talked for hours, our conversation spilling over into all sorts of other topics along the way. I made a few pages of notes.

Ultimately, this is your story, Dad, I said towards the end. So is there anything else that you feel would be important to include?

My father mentioned a few books I might readacademic treatises on gay social and political movements, the odd noveland I jotted them down. Then he looked away pensively, inhaled sharply and opened his mouth, as if to add something. But instead of speaking, he simply held both posture and breath. Without explanation, he then got up and disappeared to his basement, reappearing a few minutes later with a small box, which he placed on the kitchen table.

You might want to look through this, he said, and walked over to the counter to begin preparing dinner.

I asked the obvious.

Oh, just a few papers, he replied. Casual as could be.