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y separately published work icon The Boy in the Yellow Dress single work   autobiography  
Issue Details: First known date: 2014... 2014 The Boy in the Yellow Dress
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AbstractHistoryArchive Description

'Perth in the 1950s. After being caught wearing his mother’s yellow dress, young Victor had to hide any tendency towards gender inappropriate behaviour. But his interest in dancing and theatre (and mooning over Rudolph Nureyev on the telly) were bound to make the façade collapse at some point. Emerging sexuality and the sense of not being 'at home' in his body, let alone the world, ran alongside a search for meaning that brought him eventually to a spiritual awakening under the young guru Maharaji ...

'Part family tragedy, part existential comedy, The Boy in the Yellow Dress is a warts-and-all account of exile and the subsequent journey homewards that is less about finding a respectable place in the world than an intimate connection with the ultimate source of being. ' (Publication summary)

Notes

  • Dedication: For Prem

Publication Details of Only Known VersionEarliest 2 Known Versions of

    • Melbourne, Victoria,: Clouds of Magellan , 2014 .
      image of person or book cover 2528546624377197486.jpg
      Cover image courtesy of publisher.
      Extent: 337p.
      Note/s:
      • Published May 2014
      ISBN: 9781742984087
VIEW PUBLICATION DETAILS FOR ALL VERSIONS ()

Related Works

The Boy in the Yellow Dress (Scenes From a Life) Victor Marsh , 2006 single work autobiography
— Appears in: The Journey of the Queer 'I': Spirituality and Subjectivity in Life Narratives by Gay Men 2006; (p. 1-206) '[A] narrative journey into and out of shame. Confronted with a ready-made, marginalised identity shaped by hostile discourses emanating from Family, Medicine, the Church, and the Law, a sissy boy struggles to recover the lost parts of self. With the help of spiritual practices taught by a young guru he is able to reclain a subjective positioning which heals his alienation and re-aligns him to a continuity of being with all that is.' - from the author's Abstract (p.iii)
The Boy in the Yellow Dress : Reframing Subjectivity in Narrativisations of the Queer Self Victor Marsh , 2007 single work essay
— Appears in: Life Writing , October vol. 4 no. 2 2007; (p. 263-285) From author's abstract: 'In my experience, religion strives to drive a wedge between queer folk and their sexuality. Further, by perpetuating the sexualised construction of identity, it excludes particular sources of knowledge as fit only for people situated comfortably within its heteronormative models. Yet there is plenty of evidence that many queer lives are open to sources of "spiritual" insight ... beyond the heteronormative filters of the standard model. I present an extract from my memoir, a work in progress titled 'The Boy in the Yellow Dress', to demonstrate how the practice of life writing can produce versions of subjectivity that are resistant to homophobic constructions. ... The dis-illusionment that many gay men go through is re-presented as a stripping away of illusions, precipitating a radical inquiry into the nature of being that I propose is at the very heart of spiritual practice. ...I argue that, rather than upholding a fixed notion of self that is culturally produced, historically situated, and politically defended, in its quest for continuing liberation queer intelligence can prove responsive to the deconstructive imperative inherent in dertain "Eastern" approaches to religious practice.' (263)
Child's Play Victor Marsh , 2007 extract novel (The Boy in the Yellow Dress)
— Appears in: Life Writing , October vol. 4 no. 2 2007; (p. 279-280)
VIEW ALL RELATED WORKS (3)
Last amended 10 Jun 2016 10:11:32
Subjects:
Settings:
  • Perth, Western Australia,
  • 1950s
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