An Inconvenient Child by Sharyn Killens

The worst autobiography I’ve ever had the displeasure of reading was Scar Tissue by Anthony Kiedis, lead singer of the Red Hot Chilli Peppers. Not only was it self-indulgent, boring and full of stories about shagging anything that moved, the ghost writing was so bad that I’m pretty sure a dyslexic ten-year-old could have done a better job. The Inconvenient Child is not as dire as that particular effort, but it didn’t really grip me either. I think it’s a great example of what happens when an ordinary person tells an extraordinary story – the book turns out……a bit ordinary.

So the true story is amazing – white Aussie chick gets banged up by hot American Navy Man in the late 1940’s. Navy Man sails home, leaves woman to have illegitimate coloured child alone during the rollickin’ good times of the White Australia policy. Woman refuses to acknowledge child as daughter, puts her in several horrific girls’ homes throughout the years, gives her presents on intermittent visiting Sundays, won’t tell her what her father’s name is until after he dies and screws her up royally for life.

Author Sharyn Killens is now in her early 60’s, and has come to terms with her past and found a sense of belonging meeting her half siblings in America. There’s a refreshing lack of self-editing of events from her past (which sometimes you feel the subjects of autobiographies must be tempted to do, wiping out mentions of incidents that may depict them in not so flattering light, which is probably what I would do) - it’s all laid out bare here which I thought was pretty brave. There’s not much imagination in the writing itself, but I guess when the truth is so entertaining, she didn’t feel the need to embellish any further. I’m sure writing a book about your shitty childhood works out to be far cheaper than going to see a shrink.