A crowd pleasing transgender memoir. Cadance Bell grew up in Mudgee, New South Wales. Hers is your usual story of growing up in country Australia – trips to the local fish and chip shop, hunting expeditions with your father – except for one thing. Cadance had a frightening secret. Born a boy and named Benjamin Lynch, she knew that something was wrong. Her male body, and all the cultural expectations that go with being a boy, didn't fit. She felt seriously out of whack. Cadance tried to right the wrongs of her male body by secretly buying women's clothing and wearing bras underneath her blokey clobber. She would keep stashes of women's clothes in hidden bags, terrified that someone would find out. Shame, guilt, secrecy, self-loathing. All these emotions would drive her into the arms of a drug habit to try to dull the pain and make life bearable. Finally the dark clouds started to break and Cadance found a way out. She started to transition. It wasn't easy. Most difficult of all was finding acceptance from her parents. While they did struggle with her identity, they eventually came round. The above may make The All of It: A Bogan Rhapsody sound like a misery memoir, but it's actually a boisterous, rollicking, laugh out loud ride through working class Australia. Cadance Bell has a magic gift for capturing personalities in their true vernacular. Her dialogue leaps off the page and shakes you about. The portraits of her knock-about parents – her mother, a tough-as-nails nurse who's seen it all and her father, a mine worker – are unforgettable. The various snapshots of growing up in rural Australia resonate as unmistakably authentic. This may be a trans memoir, but readers will see themselves and their family in its pithy descriptions of Australian life. Ultimately, The All of It is a funny, big-hearted memoir of growing up Australian, one that also deftly explains the pain and mental anguish of feeling you don't belong in your body. An absolute winner. Release date 5th July, 2022 The All of It: A Bogan Rhapsody, by Cadance Bell. Published by Viking. $34.99 Review by Chris Saliba Comments are closed.
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