Shannon Molloy has written an account of his teenage trauma that is surprisingly light in tone.Credit:Dallas Kilponen
His memoir focuses on a single,volatile year of an adolescence riven by discrimination. Molloy lives in Yeppoon,a small regional Queensland town of about 9000 people,where he attends an all-boys Catholic high school. Here he is subjected daily to hate-fuelled homophobia manifested in physical,emotional,and sexual assault from his peers – as well as humiliation from teachers and other adults. To Molloy,the word"homophobia"seems inaccurate,a euphemism:"They did not seem merely scared by it. They were enraged by it. Violently so."
Initially,Molloy hates being gay,inured to believing it shameful,an unscalable obstacle between him and belonging – even the idea of being bisexual appeals as it seems only"half wrong". The high school he attends is an environment of"horrific misogyny",one where a dangerously unhealthy,hyper-masculine culture is allowed to fester.
After he visits a psychiatrist,whom he’s sent to while battling depression,he is told that if he were to change his"lifestyle"– and maybe sort out that"very gay"walk of his – then perhaps he wouldn’t be harassed.
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Molloy has received such treatment all his life,and as a result has learnt to abhor his more effeminate qualities,teaching himself from as young as six to not squeal,to laugh deeper,to be less flamboyant in his movements.
Throughout the book,Molloy navigates the town’s ignorance,vitriol,and abuse,while telling us about his family,his aspirations to be a journalist – he now works for News Corp – and escape Yeppoon,and his plans to host an end-of-year dance extravaganza. Despite being stuck in a town of little diversity,Molloy gradually explores his sexuality and identity,experiencing his first kiss with a boy as well as its particularly nasty heartache.
Such an event is turbulent for any teenager,but for Molloy it is all the more foreign:the concept of being physically intimate with a man was"so confusing,so utterly foreign,that it almost induced a panic attack".