Secret unraveling

I hate abusive stories from my childhood. They’re humiliating. I feel humiliated by them. I did at the time, and I do now. And that’s a kind of buy-in, isn’t it? My silence. My tentative, “It’s not OK that you did that.” Or, “You can’t treat me like this anymore.” You accept the secrets of your family, the apple-pie facade, or you don’t. I tried hopscotch for years, but it doesn’t work. Eventually you’ll step where you’re not supposed to.

My parents don’t want me to be happy if happy involves being with a woman. No doubt that should be a shorter sentence. My parents don’t want me to be happy. And? So what? I’m all grown up. What difference does it make whether or not they want me to be happy? Whether or not they wish me well? I suppose you could say that about any relationship. Why not just cut and burn?

I have spent most of my life attempting to separate sex from humiliation. Or, to restate, I have been putting out humiliating fires for as long as I can remember. At a dinner recently, a woman told me I looked like I’d dated a lot. It was such an odd thing to say. Are you calling me a slut? Cause that’s actually a word I’m comfortable with. I love sluts. They have chosen to enjoy themselves. They have stepped outside Judeo-Christian bigotry, the lies of patriarchy, and asserted their sexual selves. You don’t get to control them. They are liberated.

My earliest memories are of masturbation. The worst stories I know involve attempts to crush out my sexuality as though it were a cigarette. It’s terrifying to realize you have been owned. And in so many ways, it’s worse to find yourself suddenly free. I don’t keep secrets for people. I don’t even keep my own. Is that liberation? Is it? I think it is. Hard-won. Hard-kept. Hard. But these things are mine. They happened to me. That does not mean they are my fault. That means they are mine to disclose. Mine to reveal. Mine to unravel.

 

2 thoughts on “Secret unraveling”

  1. I used to think there was power in secret-keeping. Like some kind of grown-up power. But really, it’s an awful burden, isn’t it? It’s torture.

    And I can’t keep secrets because I just obsess about what the honesty would do.

  2. There’s tons of drama in secret-keeping, but I’m not sure there’s any power. People tend to confide things to me. I used to think it meant something. That I was more honest or open or something. I think they just sense that their secrets don’t matter to me. That I’m curious about humans because we’re fascinating, but I have no investment in judging anyone. Like the tattoo-shop-reader said, “We all have our things.”

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Jill Malone

Jill Malone grew up in a military family, went to German kindergarten, and lived across from a bakery that made gummi bears the size of mice. She has lived on the East Coast and in Hawaii, and for the last seventeen years in Spokane with her son, two dogs, a hedgehog, and a lot of outdoor gear. She looks for any excuse to play guitar. Jill is married to a performance artist and addiction counselor who makes the best risotto on the planet.

Giraffe People is her third novel. Her first novel, Red Audrey and the Roping, was a Lambda finalist and won the third annual Bywater Prize for Fiction. A Field Guide to Deception, her second novel, was a finalist for the Ferro-Grumley, and won the Lambda Literary Award and the Great Northwest Book Festival.

Giraffe People

Giraffe People

Between God and the army, fifteen-year-old Cole Peters has more than enough to rebel against. But this Chaplain’s daughter isn’t resorting to drugs or craziness. Truth to tell, she’s content with her soccer team and her band and her white bread boyfriend.

And then, of course, there’s Meghan.

Meghan is eighteen years old and preparing for entry into West Point. For this she has sponsors: Cole’s parents. They’re delighted their daughter is finally looking up to someone. Someone who can tutor her and be a friend.

But one night that relationship changes and Cole’s world flips.

Giraffe People is a potent reminder of the rites of passage and passion that we all endure on our road to growing up and growing strong. Award-winning author Jill Malone tells a story of coming out and coming of age, giving us a take that is both subtle and fresh.

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A Field Guide to Deception

A Field Guide to Deception

In Jill Malone’s second novel, A Field Guide to Deception, nothing is as simple as it appears: community, notions of motherhood, the nature of goodness, nor even compelling love. Revelations are punctured and then revisited with deeper insight, alliances shift, and heroes turn anti-hero—and vice versa.

With her aunt’s death Claire Bernard loses her best companion, her livelihood, and her son’s co-parent. Malone’s smart, intriguing writing beguiles the reader into this taut, compelling story of a makeshift family and the reawakening of a past they’d hoped to outrun. Claire’s journey is the unifying tension in this book of layered and shifting alliances.

A Field Guide to Deception is a serious novel filled with snappy dialogue, quick-moving and funny incidents, compelling characterizations, mysterious plot twists, and an unexpected climax. It is a rich, complex tale for literary readers.

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Red Audrey and the Roping

Red Audrey and the Roping

Occasionally a debut novel comes along that rocks its readers back on their heels. Red Audrey and the Roping is one of that rare and remarkable breed. With storytelling as accomplished as successful literary novelists like Margaret Atwood and Sarah Waters, Jill Malone takes us on a journey through the heart of Latin professor Jane Elliot.

Set against the dramatic landscapes and seascapes of Hawaii, this is the deeply moving story of a young woman traumatized by her mother’s death. Scarred by guilt, she struggles to find the nerve to let love into her life again. Afraid to love herself or anyone else, Jane falls in love with risk, pitting herself against the world with dogged, destructive courage. But finally she reaches a point where there is only one danger left worth facing. The sole remaining question for Jane is whether she is willing to accept her history, embrace her damage, and take a chance on love.

As well as a gripping and emotional story, Red Audrey and the Roping is a remarkable literary achievement. The breathtaking prose evokes setting, characters, and relationships with equal grace. The dialogue sparks and sparkles. Splintered fragments of narrative come together to form a seamless suspenseful story that flows effortlessly to its dramatic conclusion.

Winner of the Bywater Prize for Fiction, Red Audrey and the Roping is one of the most memorable first novels you will ever read.

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