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A review by finesilkflower
The Family Outing by Jessi Hempel
2.0
This book feels unfocused. It's a memoir/biography of the author's family, focused on the shared life theme of outing. The introduction and marketing hints that everyone in the family was outed at once, or in a cause-and-effect kind of way like dominoes toppling over, but that's not really the case. Most of the family members are queer, but their comings-of-out happened over a long span of time and were mostly unrelated. The most interesting events happen when Hempel wasn't present. While she was off traveling the world and doing Teach for America, her father was outed as gay when her younger sister stumbled on his online double life. This event led to the slow, awkward dissolution of their parents' marriage, as well as Hempel's mother's discovery, in therapy, of post-traumatic stress disorder originating from her teenagerhood, when she survived a near-miss with a serial killer.
One of the awkward things about this book is that "four people are queer and one was involved in a true crime story" don't really go together. That is not a category. You would never structure a fiction book that way. I understand that Hempel can't choose that her family members didn't either have all the same experience or a more pleasing variety of experiences, but she could have chosen to structure the story differently (e.g. splitting it into two books, one about crime and one about queerness; or just focusing on her parents, so it would be half-and-half and she could explore the relationship between the ideas more fully.) 20% is an awkward amount of time to spend in a different genre, and it isn't clear to me what Hempel wants to say about the relationship between surviving crime and growing up queer.
Another awkward thing is that it feels like Hempel's family haven't entirely bought into her telling their story. As self-centered as memoirs can be, it somehow feels more self-centered for Hempel to be attempting to tell the story of her family, presumptuous almost. I'm particularly uncomfortable with her telling of her brother Evan's experiences, because he seems like a private person and reading between the lines, it seems like they have already butted heads over how much Jessi is allowed to put in the book. Jessi also describes his experiences as a transgender person with a profound level of cis awkwardness.
A weird amount of time is devoted to Jessi's time in a MLM/cult. This seems to have nothing to do with anything.
One of the awkward things about this book is that "four people are queer and one was involved in a true crime story" don't really go together. That is not a category. You would never structure a fiction book that way. I understand that Hempel can't choose that her family members didn't either have all the same experience or a more pleasing variety of experiences, but she could have chosen to structure the story differently (e.g. splitting it into two books, one about crime and one about queerness; or just focusing on her parents, so it would be half-and-half and she could explore the relationship between the ideas more fully.) 20% is an awkward amount of time to spend in a different genre, and it isn't clear to me what Hempel wants to say about the relationship between surviving crime and growing up queer.
Another awkward thing is that it feels like Hempel's family haven't entirely bought into her telling their story. As self-centered as memoirs can be, it somehow feels more self-centered for Hempel to be attempting to tell the story of her family, presumptuous almost. I'm particularly uncomfortable with her telling of her brother Evan's experiences, because he seems like a private person and reading between the lines, it seems like they have already butted heads over how much Jessi is allowed to put in the book. Jessi also describes his experiences as a transgender person with a profound level of cis awkwardness.
A weird amount of time is devoted to Jessi's time in a MLM/cult. This seems to have nothing to do with anything.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Outing
Moderate: Suicide attempt and Murder