BOOKS
T he E nd of I n n o cen ce :
A M emoir
by Chastity Bono and Michele
Kort. Alyson Publications, 2002;
$22.95 hardcover.
T
the
. end o f'
innocence
The end of memoir
Fortunately, a couple of fine choices
sit next to another had celebrity bio
imeline of Chastity Bono:
The only child of the
though, I was lying with my
beloved Sonny and Cher,
arms behind my head— and I
she was first seen on their vari
ended up burning by armpits,
ety show in the 1970s. She
the one area I hadn’t protected!”
launched her coming out on
The editing, too, is unsatisfy
the 1995 cover of The Advocate ,
ing: “In fact, no one caught my
became a spokeswoman for the
eye— until I saw Joan in a sleeve
Human Rights Campaign and
less summer dress, sparkling like a
penned the well-selling Family
Christmas
tree in August.”
W t Ï H M t C M Ç t E KORT-;
Outing in 1998. Now follows a
As it has throughout her
second bcxik, the so-called
life, once again status will save
memoir The End of Innocence.
Chastity Bono. Her name alone
This one spits the media in the face. It’s one
will sell this piece of self-indulgent tripe.
There’s some consolation in the fact that she
step ahead of the tabloids, rejecting all hereto
painful distortions, replacing them by a whole
dares to be dangerously vulnerable and never
loses her integrity while fighting the good fight
and authentic representation of the author.
against homophobia. For that I say, hats off.
Simultaneously, it serves a personal thera
— Els Debbaut
peutic purpose. Bono travels back in time to
deal with a traumatic loss, reaching a successful
catharsis in the end; she comes off better
T he F emale E un uch
by Germaine Greer, edited by Jennifer Baumgardner.
equipped to handle life’s shady sides.
And the readers? They get to enjoy the cheap
Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2002; $15 softcover.
thrill of peeking into somebody else’s (real!) life.
In a nutshell, Innocence is a brutally honest
irst published in 1971, The Female Eunuch
celebrity coming-of-age story. Detailing five
by Germaine Greer was hailed by the New
years in the famous dyke’s life, the book covers
York Times as “the best feminist book so far.”
Bono’s attempts at a closeted life with girlfriend
It was an instant hit but soon went out of
Rachel as they start up the band Ceremony on
print— until last year when journalist Jennifer
Baumgardner set about resurrecting feminist
the Geffen label.
classics and putting them back into the hands
All the while, part of Bono is still in love
with her mom’s friend Joan Stephens, a woman
of feminists.
twice her age. We hear reminiscences of her
“Imagine if most of the moral lessons you
crush on Stephens at age 13 and subsequent
learned were derived from the Bible,” Baumgard
sexual encounter several years later.
ner writes in the introduction to this 21st
Too many details about the internal
anniversary edition, “but you were never allowed
(non)workings and progress of the band load
to read that book’s text yourself. You could never
the txxik down before Bono touches on what
come to your own conclusions or have your own
she really wants to address. It’s clear her heart
relationship with morality.” Baumgardner con
was never in her music, and that section of the
tends that the classic texts of the
story reflects accordingly. She seems a looker-
women’s movement are every bit
on while a meaningless career passes her by.
as important as any other “clas
sic” texts.
The book finally takes flight when Stephens
So, who or what is this
and Bono get together in the midst of a lot of
eunuch? According to Greer, a
dykedrama. All becomes heart-wrenching when
second wave British scholar, the
Stephens’ terminal non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma
castrated female is the woman
starts to direct Bono’s life.
who has been conditioned to
Sadly, as is the case with so many celebrity
sublimate her sexuality, physi
bios, Innocence does no justice to the art of
cally and psychically. Taught
memoir; it’s just another diary in disguise. Many
from the cradle to deny “the
irrelevant details take up space, and the lan
element of quest in her sexuali
guage is mediocre at best: “Since we spent time
ty,” the eunuch denies “new
lying by the pool, I made sure to put on sun
forms of desire and curiosity” in
screen, because I’m pretty fair and hadn’t devel
all realms of life.
oped my base tan for the year. At some point
HASTfr
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Jid iu lW
S u n o r S to r i
Greer’s postulation was and is
revolutionary, not because she was
the first to link sexual energy and
life force— Nietzsche wrote that
“the degree and essential nature of
any human being’s sexuality
extends into the highest pinnacle
of his spirit”— but she was one of
the first to link libido to women’s
liberation.
Eunuch is by turns sweeping,
antiquated, overwrought, riveting,
sharply insightful and propagandistic. For many
of us long schooled in feminist politics, it reads
as old news. The challenge is to put the work
in context and appreciate how radical Greer’s
pro-sex, pro-independent-woman, anti
consumer-culture message was— and still is.
In addition to trenchant insights and hilari
ous wit, Greer is prone to erroneous interpreta
tions of science and psychology. She focuses
almost solely upon heterosexual women; when
she does mention lesbians, she is supportive, if
misinformed:
“Much lesbianism may be understood as
revolt against the limitations of the female
role of passivity, hypocrisy and indirect
action, as well as rejection of the brutality
and mechanicalness of male sexual passion.”
Greer then assures readers that “dildoes are
not used by butch lesbians.” Where is she
going with this, one wonders; unfortunately,
there’s no follow-up.
She does, however, have many brilliant
insights, such as her comment on the famous
Masters and Johnson study of sexuality: “Sexu
al enlightenment happened under government
subsidy, so that its discoveries were released in
bad prose and clinical jargon.”
Also, she 4s admirably res
olute in her connection
between women’s sexual oppres
sion and capitalistic consumer
economies: “The depression of
women is necessary to the
maintenance of the economy. If
the present economic structure
can change only by collapsing,
then it had better collapse as
soon as possible.”
The Female Eunuch is a wild
ride. Not for the timid or the
repressed at heart.
— Meg Daly
A n A m erican F amily
by Jon and Michael Galluccio and David M .
Groff. St. Martins Press, 2002; $14.95 softcover.
C
ourageous. That’s the
only word to describe
the heroes of An Amer
ican Family, the deeply
moving personal account
of a New Jersey gay couple
who create a family based
exclusively on love.
The story is familiar to
anyone who has followed
the saga of Portland’s own
Steve Lofton and Roger
Croteau, who are fighting
Florida’s ban on gay adop
tion. Jon and Michael G al
luccio are enlisted to become foster parents to
an HIV-positive baby named Adam, who has
been bom addicted to crack cocaine, severely
underweight and with tuberculosis, a hole in his
heart and a host of other health problems.
Through tender care, Adam is weaned off
his addictions and nursed to safety. Jon and
Michael (and everyone else, including the read
er) fall in love with the unforgettable Adam.
But, despite assurances by officials of the
Child Services Division, New Jersey state law
refuses to allow a gay couple to adopt. Michael is
free to adopt Adam alone, but it is Jon who has
been the stay-at-home dad, leading the crusade to
restore Adam’s health and battling bureaucracies
every step of the way. Ignoring the advice of their
families, friends and attorney, the couple sue the
state for the right to adopt Adam together.
Along the way to a precedent-setting victo
ry, Jon and Michael take in another deathly ill
foster child who is ultimately taken away from
them after regaining his health. Then, yet
undaunted, they bring home still another. Jon,
the driving force behind the lawsuit, goes in
search of (and finds) his own birth mother, and
Michael fights for the support of his tight-knit
and tight-lipped family.
There are even more twists and turns, but I
don’t want to give away too much of this har
rowing and heartwarming tale. Suffice it to say
that the love and strength these two remark
able men have will stir your emotions and
bring tears to your eyes again and again.
The world is a better place because of this
American family, and I am a better person for
having read their extraordinary story.
— Floyd Sklaver JH
ELS DEBBAUT is the assistant manager of In Other
Words.
M eg D aly and F loyd S klaver are Portland free
lance reviewers.
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