Review of “Swerve” by G.L. Franklyn

Score: 94/100 (9.4 out of 10)

Swerve: The Story of an Orphan Boy is a riveting, heartbreaking, yet inspiring memoir by G.L. Franklyn. This book follows an orphaned boy who grew up both Catholic and gay in the middle of the 20th century, suffering from all the taboos and stigmas that come with that.

This poor boy suffered tremendous physical, emotional, mental, and—perhaps worst of all—sexual abuse from a young age. He was also exploited for free farm labor, ironically similar to another book we read about the foster care system around this time.

He says: “I would go on to live, shoulder to shoulder among damaged and unwanted kids.”

Perhaps the most tragic thing about all of this is that these types of abuses were so frequent in the foster care system that Franklyn became desensitized to it and expected it. He began to accept that this is just the way that things are. No child should have to live with such meager and dismal expectations. This is not the way that things should be. Every child should feel safe and have somewhere they can call home.

We're not exaggerating when we say this: this kid went through more in the first eight years of his life than most people go through in their entire lives! It is absolutely horrendous, tragic, and sad what happened to this kid.

And yet... despite all of that, here he is: alive and able to tell the story!

We feel blessed and honored to be able to read this, despite the fact that it can be uncomfortable or even agitating to read. The very fact that we felt this is way is a testament to Franklyn's storytelling abilities. Yes, the formatting of this book is unfinished and rough, but the way that the author tells the story is captivating. It takes skills to evoke those types of emotions from your reader.

Also, the story of this book is a reminder of how fortunate we are to be alive. Hurt and pain are a part of being alive. Suffering is a part of life. It's a part of the experience. It's a part of our hero's journey. We all have our own unique challenges, some more than others. It's how we face and overcome them that counts.

The boy was born into a highly-religious (Catholic) family, but developed an effeminate (we liked to say “flamboyant”) personality that went against their beliefs and expectations. To make him a real boy, he was sent to a military prep school. Along the way, his mother fell in love with another man and essentially left the family to live with him. His father, already frustrated with the boy's effeminate nature and budding homosexuality, also rejects him. In court, the boy is forced to hear why both of his parents don't want him, each with their own motivations and on separate sides.

The court sends the boy to, of all places, juvenile detention—essentially a prison—simply because there's nowhere else to keep him. There, the boy was treated like all of the other young prisoners, some of whom were charged with actual, serious crimes. In fact, he finds, the more serious the crimes committed, the higher up on the pecking order that the juveniles are.

This is one of the many things that seems to fly in the face of the boy's Catholic upbringing, one that is rigid with its rules, code of ethics, and penalties for disobedience. Ironically, despite religion being one of the banes of his existence, it also helped to arm the boy with a strong sense of morality and honor that he holds throughout the book. Likewise, the abuse he experiences seems to teach him empathy and compassion.

We read him say things like:

“It bothered me because I couldn’t understand why someone would come along and destroy someone else’s joy like that, just because they could. But then, that’s not how I responded to trauma. I wouldn’t do that to anyone because I was well versed on what it feels like to be on the receiving end of such senseless cruelty.”

Also:

“Being fair was a core value for me and I think the others could sense it.”

Juvenile detention proved to be just one of the many prisons that the boy was forced to live in. Along the way, he was forced to live under the roofs of many foster families, each with their own levels of depravity and ways of abusing him.

Perhaps the one that disturbed us the most was Bob, one of his older foster brothers, who frequently forced the boy into sexual acts. Bob is evil, but there's a lot of evil to go around. There's also a foster-mother who prohibits the boy from showering because of some kind of OCD or psychosis she suffers from. He is also blamed and beaten for various things by numerous foster parents.

However, probably the experience we found ourselves the most engaged with was the boy's life on a farm, living with a family known as the Macklems. There, he is exploited for free farm labor. This is eerily similar, if not identical to the experiences of Roger Saillant in The Power of Being Seen. As a boy, Roger was also forced to live and work on a farm by the foster care system.

However, it almost seems like this experience was the most positive of all of Franklyn's young life as an orphan, and that's saying a lot!

He actually seems to see the farm as a rather exciting place, saying:

“There were 40 acres, including 2 barns and plenty of old forgotten farming equipment to explore; and, of course, a stable full of Ponies to ride.”

He really feels a sense of belonging and at home on the farm, despite its dirtiness and hard work. One of the most beautiful parts of the entire book is when the author describes how the mere smell of the farm made him feel:

“Another thing I loved about living on a farm was the smells. The smell of Hay and the smell of Straw are different. The smell of fresh, moist soil. The smell of the mash we fed the Cows was a combination of oats, wheat and corn ground up together. The smell of warm milk as we milked the cows. Even the smell of different animal’s manure. Pony manure doesn’t have much of a smell, but cow manure, as I’m sure you know, has a distinctive and pungent odor that wasn’t altogether unpleasant to me. There is something about all these smells that felt earthy and comforting to me.”

The farm gives him a sense of awe and wonder, things that a child should naturally experience—and things that he was deprived of for so long.

Now, again, this book is filled to the brim with triggering content including sexual abuse and exploitation. Some of the sexual stuff is quite frequent and graphic.

There are some amusing and even funny spots that lighten the mood. For example, the author describes that when he and another person would pee “we used to have sword fights with our streams.” This is a reminder that, despite all that the boy goes through, he is still a boy. And boys will be boys.

Check it out on Amazon!