Spanning nearly six decades and three continents, this engrossing memoir traces one woman’s sexual awakening amid a reckoning with family secrets. After a teenage Virginia stumbles onto her father’s closeted homosexuality and rampant infidelity, she spends the next few years suppressing memories of the discovery and the traumatic night when she first realized her family had a secret. Simultaneously, the glamorous jet-setting existence she had known throughout her childhood—following her father’s business ventures in France, Kenya, and Denmark—comes to a sudden end.
Years later, when Virginia Scott confides in her father about her own lesbian awakening, he advises her to “live it on the side” as he had. The consequences of this advice are disastrous: A failed marriage results in loss of custody of her children, forcing her to reckon with her sexuality and its place in her life. Forthright and unflinching, Scott’s memoir follows her path from trauma to healing, from secrets to truth, and from denying to embracing her identity.