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A review by thelizabeth
The Tricky Part: A Boy's Story of Sexual Trespass, a Man's Journey to Forgiveness by Martin Moran
3.0
I always wanted to read this since I first heard about it. I finally did because I got to see the author's new play recently, another autobiographical piece, so I guess you can sort of call it a sequel? But it's about much different things, though certainly references the events in this story. It was beautiful and kind, I really loved it. (If he ever does another stint of the one-man play version of this work, I'd love to see it too.)
He's an incredibly generous storyteller, here as a memoirist about his youth. He displays sympathy for everyone. This book is a lot like the exercise I think a lot of us fantasize about: being able to look our younger selves in the eye as they go through the things we know were the hardest, and tell them we understand and they're okay and they'll be okay. It Gets Better all the way.
The book is just what it says on the cover, his extremely straightforward chronicle of Catholicism, coming out, and a very creepy long-running situation with an adult man who had sex with him as a kid. It's very subject-specific and there is a huge amount of detail about the events and emotions of all of this. It's 100% a therapeutic book for the author, and I can imagine it being something that people recovering from related events may need too.
The close focus made it a little unexciting for me sometimes, because I don't need the book for those exact things. He writes a few lovely sections about more generally relatable feelings -- the frustration of depression, the gratitude and amazement of being loved, how much work it is to forget the past. To make the things that definitely mattered a lot not matter the most forever.
I think this is the story he needed to write in order to write other stories, though, so I'm extremely grateful he was able to and is able to be free and happy as a person and an author. He has a loving view of life that is invaluable, and I hope I get to hear him talk about all of it.
He's an incredibly generous storyteller, here as a memoirist about his youth. He displays sympathy for everyone. This book is a lot like the exercise I think a lot of us fantasize about: being able to look our younger selves in the eye as they go through the things we know were the hardest, and tell them we understand and they're okay and they'll be okay. It Gets Better all the way.
The book is just what it says on the cover, his extremely straightforward chronicle of Catholicism, coming out, and a very creepy long-running situation with an adult man who had sex with him as a kid. It's very subject-specific and there is a huge amount of detail about the events and emotions of all of this. It's 100% a therapeutic book for the author, and I can imagine it being something that people recovering from related events may need too.
The close focus made it a little unexciting for me sometimes, because I don't need the book for those exact things. He writes a few lovely sections about more generally relatable feelings -- the frustration of depression, the gratitude and amazement of being loved, how much work it is to forget the past. To make the things that definitely mattered a lot not matter the most forever.
I think this is the story he needed to write in order to write other stories, though, so I'm extremely grateful he was able to and is able to be free and happy as a person and an author. He has a loving view of life that is invaluable, and I hope I get to hear him talk about all of it.