Family Outing - Hardcover

Bono, Chastity

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0965687708 ISBN 13: 9780965687706

Publisher: Little Brown Company, 1998

Synopsis

A self-help book for parents and teens-to-early-twenties on coming out. Chastity Bono (daughter of Cher and Sonny) interweaves the story of her own experience with her parents with those of many others, offering practical advice on seeing yourself as normal (parents and kids alike). This is a frank account of her own and others' rites of passage, and a clear case for the acknowledgement being a form of empowerment for herself and others, parent and child.

About this title

Review:

Family Outing is two books in one: a memoir of Chastity Bono's experience coming out as a lesbian to her famous parents and a look at the difficulties and triumphs that are part of every uncloseted homosexual's family life, with narratives drawn from interviews with members of Parents and Friends of Lesbians and Gays (PFLAG). Sometimes the two projects work against each other, but for the most part, Bono is right in assuming that her story reflects something larger in the culture and that others' stories, in turn, bear on her own experience. Readers skimming for intimate details about the mother-daughter conflict between Cher and Chastity won't be disappointed by Bono's sensitively written account. For a long time, Cher overlooked the troubling evidence of her daughter's emerging sexual identity: "Instead, she focused on superficial issues that bothered her: my short hair, my mannish clothes, my weight." Their relationship deteriorated, and it was Sonny to whom Chastity eventually confided; ironically, the father who offered immediate, warm acceptance of his daughter's lesbianism would later sponsor the 1996 Defense of Marriage Act in the House of Representatives. --Regina Marler

About the Author:

" Chastity Bono lectures around the country on coming out and on gay and lesbian portrayals in the media. She was formerly the entertainment media director of the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (GLAAD). From 1995 through 1996, she was Writer-at-Large at The Advocate. In 1996, she became the National Coming Out Project spokesperson for the Human Rights Campaign, the nation's largest gay and lesbian political organization. She lives in Los Angeles."

About this edition

• Publisher: Little Brown Company
• Publication date: 1998
• ISBN 10: 0965687708
• ISBN 13: 9780965687706
• Binding: Hardcover