Shortlisted for the Edna Staebler Award for Creative Non-Fiction

Nominated for the RBC/Taylor Prize for Non-Fiction

Selected as an Indigo ‘Top 50 Books of 2013’

National Bestseller

Confessions of a Fairy’s Daughter had me in tears: first of laughter, then of sadness, then of wonder at life’s 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 the Man Booker prize-nominated Far to Go

A passionate memoir about growing up with a gay father in the 1980s, and a tribute to the power of truth, humour, acceptance and familial love. 

Alison Wearing’s father was a professor of political science and amateur choral conductor, her mother was an accomplished pianist and marathon runner, and together they had fed the family a steady diet of arts, adventures, mishaps, normal frustrations and inexhaustible laughter. Yet despite these agreeable circumstances, Joe’s internal life was haunted by conflicting desires. As he began to explore and understand the truth about himself, he became determined to find a way to live both as a gay man and a devoted father, something almost unheard of in the 1970s.

Confessions of a Fairy’s Daughter is both a moving memoir and an important historical document, a story from the first generation of children living with openly LGBTQ parents. Already wrestling with an adolescent’s search for identity when her father came out of the closet, Alison promptly “went in,” concealing the truth about her life and fabricating extravagant stories that were acceptable for the time. But as the years went on and definitions of family began to expand and evolve, it became possible not just to have a gay father, but to celebrate one.

Balancing intimacy, history and downright hilarity, Confessions of a Fairy’s Daughter is a captivating tale of family life: deliciously imperfect, riotously challenging, and full of life’s great lessons in love.


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Reviews & Media

 
 
 
 
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...
This book is for anyone one who chooses to live (and love) openly and freely.
— Kamal al-Solaylee, author of INTOLERABLE and BROWN
A clever, lively and thoughtful read, the book is valuable not merely at the level of personal revelation, but also for capturing perspectives—both her father’s and her own—on a specific socio-historical moment perhaps now on the verge of being forgotten as the drive toward LGBT equality continues to propel forward.
— Literary Review of Canada
A fascinating and comical telling . . . It shines a light on how she, her family and the gay movement were left groping in the dark until they finally found their way personally and politically...Her book is hilarious, sad, thoughtful, sensitive and honest.
— The London Free Press
A memoir about what is at heart, averaged out over time, a happy family.
How interesting can that be? As it turns out, very.
— The Montreal Gazette
With great skill and tenderness and a gorgeously wicked sense of humor, Wearing tells her family’s story from every angle, allowing all to speak with their own voices...it’s 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
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 Fairy’s Daughter caught me from the beginning and held me until its touching conclusion.
— Katherine Ashenburg, author of The Mourner's 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 Fairy’s Daughter is painful, tender, poignant and – most important – beautifully honest.
— Brian Francis, author of Natural Order and Fruit

INTERESTED IN MEMOIR WRITING?

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