Skyler Phoenix By Damien Benoit-Ledoux Published by Purple Spekter Press, 2016 (second edition 2021) Four stars
This is the story of a boy who goes from one bad trauma to a worse one; a story that follows him on his journey from sadness and fear to happiness. It’s important that you know it’s a happy ending, because the journey is perilous and frightening. And, I’m afraid, all too real.
Skyler Phoenix is an orphan, thrown into the foster-care system at the age of ten. Although the author notes that the book is semi-autobiographical, it makes good hair-raising fiction for anyone who grew up anywhere on the LGBTQ rainbow any time in the last half century.
Interestingly, the book is not an indictment of foster care, only of the inability of case-workers to be able to read the minds of those to set themselves up to be foster parents. Katie, Skyler’s case-worker, ends up being a kind of hero; but only after Skyler has suffered – not once but twice – at the hands of families who do him more harm than good.
It is not a simple good-guys-bad-guys story, and that makes it all the more painful. The violence of alcoholism is no better or worse than that of religious intolerance; and the threat of violence is every bit as damaging as physical violence, at least on a child’s psyche. Skyler’s story is Dickensian, if you think of “Oliver Twist,” and that orphan Oliver’s voyage from bad to worse to happiness. (Think of the son in the movie musical, “Where is love?” and it’ll make you cry; or at least I did.)
This book is set in the 21st century, and yet Skyler suffers far more than I did coming out in the 1970s. It’s all the luck of the draw, the hand he is dealt (and the amazingly lucky hand I was dealt). The story emphasizes the importance of love – real love, not conditional love – as a powerful tool for healing; and also underscores the point that children are really helpless to improve their lives when the context of their lives is inimical to their happiness.
If I had any regret at all, I’d say that the one religious perspective in the book is not given any counterpoint other than the “I’m spiritual, not religious” alternative. Having spent half my life in an Episcopal church where many gay children were happily launched into the world knowing they were loved by their religious community and their families, it just seems unfair not to at least acknowledge this. Then again, this is the author’s semi-autobiographical story, so perhaps I’m being unduly concerned.
The world I came out in was far more hostile than it is now. Events of the last six years have proved, however, that LGBTQ people are still not really safe in this country unless they are fortunate enough to be in the right place at the right time. Damien Benoit-Ledoux’s heartfelt story is a reminder of that all-too-important truth.
By Damien Benoit-Ledoux
Published by Purple Spekter Press, 2016 (second edition 2021)
Four stars
This is the story of a boy who goes from one bad trauma to a worse one; a story that follows him on his journey from sadness and fear to happiness. It’s important that you know it’s a happy ending, because the journey is perilous and frightening. And, I’m afraid, all too real.
Skyler Phoenix is an orphan, thrown into the foster-care system at the age of ten. Although the author notes that the book is semi-autobiographical, it makes good hair-raising fiction for anyone who grew up anywhere on the LGBTQ rainbow any time in the last half century.
Interestingly, the book is not an indictment of foster care, only of the inability of case-workers to be able to read the minds of those to set themselves up to be foster parents. Katie, Skyler’s case-worker, ends up being a kind of hero; but only after Skyler has suffered – not once but twice – at the hands of families who do him more harm than good.
It is not a simple good-guys-bad-guys story, and that makes it all the more painful. The violence of alcoholism is no better or worse than that of religious intolerance; and the threat of violence is every bit as damaging as physical violence, at least on a child’s psyche. Skyler’s story is Dickensian, if you think of “Oliver Twist,” and that orphan Oliver’s voyage from bad to worse to happiness. (Think of the son in the movie musical, “Where is love?” and it’ll make you cry; or at least I did.)
This book is set in the 21st century, and yet Skyler suffers far more than I did coming out in the 1970s. It’s all the luck of the draw, the hand he is dealt (and the amazingly lucky hand I was dealt). The story emphasizes the importance of love – real love, not conditional love – as a powerful tool for healing; and also underscores the point that children are really helpless to improve their lives when the context of their lives is inimical to their happiness.
If I had any regret at all, I’d say that the one religious perspective in the book is not given any counterpoint other than the “I’m spiritual, not religious” alternative. Having spent half my life in an Episcopal church where many gay children were happily launched into the world knowing they were loved by their religious community and their families, it just seems unfair not to at least acknowledge this. Then again, this is the author’s semi-autobiographical story, so perhaps I’m being unduly concerned.
The world I came out in was far more hostile than it is now. Events of the last six years have proved, however, that LGBTQ people are still not really safe in this country unless they are fortunate enough to be in the right place at the right time. Damien Benoit-Ledoux’s heartfelt story is a reminder of that all-too-important truth.