Name: Laura Mauler's review of Darling Days by iO Tillett Wright
Item: Darling Days
Rating: 5
Author: Laura Mauler

iO Tillett Wright

Born into the beautiful bedlam of downtown New York in the eighties, iO Tillett Wright came of age at the intersection of punk, poverty, heroin, and art. This was a world of self-invented characters, glamorous superstars, and strung-out sufferers, ground zero of drag and performance art. Still, no personality was more vibrant and formidable than iO’s mother’s. Rhonna, a showgirl and young widow, was a mercurial, erratic glamazon. She was iO’s fiercest defender and only authority in a world with few boundaries and even fewer indicators of normal life. At the center of Darling Days is the remarkable relationship between a fiery kid and a domineering ma—a bond defined by freedom and control, excess and sacrifice; by heartbreaking deprivation, agonizing rupture, and, ultimately, forgiveness. Darling Days is also a provocative examination of culture and identity, of the instincts that shape us and the norms that deform us, and of the courage and resilience it takes to listen closely to your deepest self. When a group of boys refuse to let six-year-old, female-born iO play ball, iO instantly adopts a new persona, becoming a boy named Ricky—a choice iO’s parents support and celebrate. It is the start of a profound exploration of gender and identity through the tenderest years, and the beginning of a life invented and reinvented at every step. Alternating between the harrowing and the hilarious, Darling Days is the candid, tough, and stirring memoir of a young person in search of an authentic self as family and home life devolve into chaos.

A Memoir

Darling Days

Chloe Galea

I WAS BORN, SEPTEMBER 1985, IN THE VORTEX OF THE LOWER EAST SIDE OF NEW YORK: THERE WERE FEW RULES OF LIFE AND ZERO CONTRAINTS ON BEHAVIOUR. IF YOU WERE NOT ECCENTRIC, YOU WERE WEIRD. It was a tenement building at the centre of the drug-addled, punk-edged, permanent riot that was iO's corner of the Lower East Side of New York City in the '80s and 90's. There iO grew up - or rather scrabbled up - under the broken wing of a fiercely protective, yet wildly negligent mother. Rhonna was a showgirl, actress, dancer, poet. A widow by police murder, she was also an addict. She doted and obsessed over iO, yet lacked an understanding that a child needs food and sleep and safety. Unfolding in animated, crystalline prose, an emotionally raw, devastatingly powerful memoir of one young person's extraordinary coming of age - a tale of gender and identity, freedom and addiction, rebellion and survival in the 1980s and 1990s, when punk poverty, heroin and art collided in the urban bohemia of New York's Lower East Side. Darling Days is also a provocative examination of culture and identity, of the instincts that shape us and the norms that deform us, and of the courage and resilience of a child listening closely to their deepest self. When a group of boys refuse to let the six-year-old play ball, iO instantly adopts a new persona, becoming a boy named Ricky, a choice the parents support and celebrate. It is the start of a profound exploration of gender and identity through the tenderest years, and the beginning of a life invented and reinvented at every step. Alternating between the harrowing and the hilarious, Darling Days is the candid, tough, and stirring memoir of a young person in search of an authentic self as family and home life devolve into chaos until iO escapes to Germany and then England to become an amazingly talented, exciting, edgy artist and wonderful writer.

Laura Mauler

I was in a reading funk, where everything on my to-read list seemed awful and I couldn't get into anything, even old favorites. Everything felt tired and tiresome, I was completely on edge. This book saved me. It took my restlessness and frustration and diverted them into a story whose own energy is cranked to 1000. The book completely absorbed me, and when I finally surfaced at the end of it I felt lightened and once again in awe of the written word.

Richard Binder

Full disclosure: I knew iO and Rhonna briefly in the early '90s when I musical directed that production of "Oliver!" iO talks about on page 135. Considering iO's quick, acerbic and alarmingly adult wit when he was barely within spitting distance of a double-digit age, it comes as little surprise that he can write so breathtakingly well. And considering what he had already experienced in his life by the time I was insisting on everyone minding my mf'ing tempo for "Food Glorious Food," it makes perfect sense that he came at the world ready with balled fists and a sharp tongue. His is an extraordinary story, as hysterically funny as often as it's agonizingly raw and harrowing, and so carefully (in the "full of care" sense) and vividly told. The chapter "Around My Edges" is almost unbearably moving, while "Blue Pea Dies" is side-splittingly ridiculous and ultimately triumphant. "Ultimately triumphant" is probably the best way to describe iO, since he's out there now kicking ass with complete empathy. And we need empathetic ass-kickers now more than ever. Maybe this book will light fires under enough people to join that worthy cause. 

TL;DR: Just read it already.

Chloe Galea &
Darling Days by iO Tillett Wright

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Chloe Galea &Darling Days by iO Tillett Wright

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Join the club

Chloe Galea &
Darling Days by iO Tillett Wright