You Made Me This Way (Shannon Molloy, Fourth Estate)

Known for his feature journalism as well as his acclaimed memoir of teenage struggle, Fourteen, Shannon Molloy has turned his keen eye to a more expansive project in You Made Me This Way. Molloy’s firsthand account of childhood molestation, by a school friend a few years his senior, is placed like a landmine at the beginning of this story, its psychological consequences rippling through the ensuing book. As well as chronicling self-destructive drinking and workaholism, the great feat of Molloy’s writing is its astute rendering of shame. In addition to recounting his personal journey of healing, conveyed through conversations with his psychiatrist, Molloy has undertaken a methodical research project about the child sexual abuse crisis in Australia, interviewing survivors, lawyers and mental health experts. It is a crisis about which, Molloy writes, we ‘should all collectively feel shame and rage and demand more from the legal system’. It is the platform that he gives a broad variety of survivors, memorialising their harrowing accounts with care and precision, which gives You Made Me This Way its profound value. Not only does it foster conversation and amplify the voices of survivors, it also offers a tribute to those who lost their lives to abuse. Part memoir, part exploratory research project, Molloy’s second book is an urgent and genre-defying feat of storytelling.

Category: Reviews