Enchanted Boy

by Richie McMullen

Enchanted Boy is the tale of a survivor. In his 'journey through abuse to prostitution', Richie McMullen tells the story of his childhood, growing up in Liverpool in the early postwar years. His account is often harrowing, yet even here, childhood has its irrepressible magic, in a world of street gangs, school and first fragile friendships.

Genres: Queer, LGBT, Memoir, Gay

123 pages, Paperback

First published December 1, 1994

About the author

Richie McMullen (1943-1991 or 1992) was a British writer and social worker. Richie McMullen. Born. 1943. Died.

Reviews

[Edmund Marlowe · Rating 4 out of 5]

Described by the author as written "to contribute to the growing knowledge of child abuse" and to tell "how my own experience of abuse led to me becoming a boy prostitute", I approached this memoir with some trepidation, fearing that it would be distorted with the fashionably unbalanced condemnation of all sexual experience between boys and men that has given rise to the current public hysteria and misunderstanding of it. However, it turned out that he was as good as his word in also saying "I offer no interpretations. Instead, I offer you the facts as subjectively experienced at the time ... I ask only one thing from you: That is, to suspend any judgements which this book may evoke within you."

This story of a boy's life in Liverpool aged five to fifteen in the years 1948 to 1958 is told with profound humanity. The arch-villain and author of the most serious abuse is his father, a terrifyingly violent drunk, but after recounting his qualities, Richie insists "He was a good man. ...He just wasn't able to translate that goodness into his family. ... Judge him at your peril. ... If you can, instead, love him then there is hope for all our futures."

The frankly-told sexual experiences that make Richie's story fascinating began in seriousness around his twelfth birthday when he was forcefully assaulted in bed by a hitherto admired eighteen year-old cousin. However, neither this nor the rape that followed soon after his resorting to prostitution at fourteen nor the general lovelessness of his sex life blinded him to the possibility of its being otherwise or put him off honestly recounting the one brief occasion when it was. Once, in utter despair, he picked as a punter a drunk, rough-looking "ugly son of a bitch" in the hope of being murdered, but what happened was so contrary to his expectations that finally, "I instinctively rushed across to him and threw my arms around him. ... I kissed him and made love with him there in the kitchen. It was the first time that I'd had sex and love all at the same time. It was beautiful." Sadly, he "never saw that beautiful man again."

It is interesting to compare Richie's story with that of Jack Robinson told in his memoir Teardrops on My Drum, also about a homosexually adventurous Liverpudlian boy with dreadful parents, but two decades earlier. The striking similarities serve to highlight the differences in emotional experience between the two boys. For Jack, though good for its own sake, sex had to be loving. His liaisons were the means by which he found the love, intimacy and adventure he craved, and his rich sex life reinforced his natural joie de vivre. For Richie, despite an equally strong need to find love, sex was utterly loveless with the sole minor exception noted above. He was driven to seek it by a mixture of rebelliousness and primaeval lust, and he seems to have resorted to prostitution too as an opportunity to satisfy those rather than for money he didn't really need. As a result, his sexual experiences underlined the grimness of his life rather than allowing him to escape it.

The primary explanation for these differences was that homosex for Richie was ruined by his Catholically-induced sense of its being filthy, where Jack had no hang-ups about it whatsoever. Secondly, Richie's father was a monstrous tyrant, where Jack's parents were above all neglectful, that and the earlier era in which he grew up both allowing him far greater freedom to build his own life on his own terms. If I could go back in time to give 12-year-old Richie one present, it would be a copy of Teardrops, which I suspect would have radically transformed his life by showing him a path to the much greater happiness he deserved.

Short and clearly written in an engaging style, often addressing the reader directly, it might have been better published as a single memoir with its equally short sequel Enchanted Youth.

Edmund Marlowe, Alexander’s Choice, a boy's love story set in 1984, https://www.amazon.com/dp/191457107X

[Todd Young · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is an honest account of a boy growing up gay in Liverpool in the 1940s/50s. After a couple of episodes of abuse, Richie finds that he can make money by selling himself. A memoir rather than a novel. Well written.

[Jeff · Rating 5 out of 5]

I remember this being a real page-turner and very moving. I'd love to get a copy and read it again.

[Mohammed Abu Oweimer · Rating 5 out of 5]

Nice one,
Away of it's main theme of Homo-S which I completely refuse to accept as a normal life for a man or child because of religious norms I follow. I can look to this novel as an educational theory suggests that the bad listening from parents, teachers, police & the fear of talking from the kids side will lead to make a huge leap upon the normality. We all see how Richi went in the way of prostitution as a revenge against the society, especially his father.

Let me open this question:
- What is the rule of his cousin "fallen hero" ?
What is the message that McMullen wants to deliver by telling us the story of his older cousin who converts to a hero then an abuser then a man standing on the father side?

[E. Trist · Rating 4 out of 5]

Grim true story set in Liverpool in the fifties about a boy aged five to fifteen who ended up finding prostitution the least unsatisfactory means of escaping his violent alcoholic father.

[Sebastian · Rating 5 out of 5]

I had to read it kinda piecemeal bc ngl the individual chapters were pretty heavy but god this was good. The voice is very real and emotional. I'm gonna start reading the sequel immediately tbh

[Tim · Rating 5 out of 5]

Life in the 50s were clearly tough on the author of this book Richie McMullen as he goes into detail about his youth What with living in a poor household and a Father who would beat him for such things as watering down the milk life was never easy Richie would often runaway from home in the hope somebody else would take pity on him and give him a better life but always ended up being collected from the police station. one time when he was about 9yo he was in the cinema when a stranger sat beside him and the started to interfere with him which Richie thought was just a man being friendly so he ends up going back to the mans lodgings but when told it was bedtime objects to the man undressing him in his words he didn't need any help he was old enough to undress himself The man panics thinking Richie has rumbled him and gives A bemused RICHIE some money and sends him packing. As he gets older Richie discovers he can make money by doing sex acts for men so starts hanging out by public toilets at the park near his home only to soon find out the dangerous side of what he does

[Liam Ostermann · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is an absolutely beautifully written book, you can get the precise here on Goodreads or elsewhere - what is refreshing is that is a memoir of struggle and abuse written long before the fashion for such memoirs had set a predictable pattern of simplistic victimhood for the 'hero' and an inevitable happy/successful ending were all problems are overcome and 'normality' achieved to make the book acceptable fodder for book clubs and TV pundits. It is also refreshingly short - unlike today's obligatory blockbusters.

I cannot recommend this, and its successor book, 'Enchanted Youth' enough. Although Richie McMullen experiences many dreadful things he is never the conventional victim because he never surrenders power over his life to others - even in the face of poverty and societal indifference - and these are the real enemies he faces and fights - along with prejudice and snobbery.

I read this book many years ago and have just acquired a new copy for myself so I will be reading it and his other books, when I get them, again.