Monday 6 September 2021

Christopher DiRaddo, The Family Way

The Family Way was another book I picked up at Drawn & Quarterly while in Montreal last month. This novel felt so "Montreal" to me and really reminded me of my mid to late teens, spending a lot of time in The Village, supporting my gay friends as they came out. During this time, we were all starting to discover and seek out places in the city where we could learn how to become ourselves, how to be queer or non-normative/non-conforming, and where not fitting it in the larger sense of things brought about in these spaces a deep feeling of self-acceptance, community and belonging. 

The story was poignant and relatable and all the characters extremely likeable, inducing compassion in the reader and an acknowledgement of the different desires and challenges faced in a (gay) life about love, sex, loss, commitment, life partners, family (planning), friendships and one's chosen family, rejection and becoming who you feel you are. Very smart and tender as well as a compulsive page-turner. 

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