Lil O'Brien - author of Not That I'd Kiss A Girl. Photo / Supplied
Not That I'd Kiss a Girl, by Lil O'Brien (Allen & Unwin, $37)
Reviewed by David Herkt
The "coming out" memoir is a recent invention. It is just 60 or 70 years old. Before that, sexual identity was largely unspeakable and unpublishable. For the contemporary world, discovering one's sexual orientation is
a personal and social journey. Individuals are often conflicted. Families can be split apart. A larger community supports or condemns.
Lil O'Brien's just-released Not That I'd Kiss a Girl triumphantly joins the select few New Zealand examples of the autobiographical coming-out genre. Compulsively readable and very much aware of the world, O'Brien's memoir is suspenseful and engaging. The book is practical and human – something that is more than valuable amid the sometimes pious wokeness of the early 21st century. It is also very funny, with a humour based on honest observation.
From the moment a 19-year-old O'Brien finds herself thrown out of the family home, standing beside a dark road in an unnamed South Island city, her book holds the reader's attention. A third-year student, with an ongoing major in the University of Otago's drinking culture, O'Brien has just confirmed to her parents that she is a lesbian, in the worst possible way – in the midst of a family argument. "I don't ever want to see you again," her mother spits out, enraged.
Employing a classic narrative strategy, O'Brien swings back in time and describes the early adolescence of a privileged teenage girl at a private school. Despite the accessories – parties, balls, weekends in Queenstown - O'Brien isn't comfortable in her own skin. She is not attracted to boys and her series of crushes on other girls begins to feel more and more significant.
