Roam

by Juno Roche

Previously published as A Working Class Family Ages Badly

Juno Roche has had a remarkable life. They were born in Peckham in the 1960s, into a working-class family who dabbled in minor criminality. The only one of their siblings to go to university, shortly after beginning their course at Brighton they were diagnosed with HIV, then a death sentence. They spent much of their younger life caught up in serious drug addiction, addiction financed often by sex work, but recovered and, after working for some years as a teacher, have for a long time now been a writer and successful campaigner.

Through a series of interconnecting essays covering a range of major topics, but with reference to the intensely personal - pubic lice, drug smuggling on budget airlines, the painful process of dilation after gender reassignment surgery - Juno Roche seeks to debunk complacent preconceptions and radically hone in on our essential humanity. This is beautiful, vulnerable, often very funny writing which, despite the extremeness of the writer's own experience, is constantly, reassuringly relatable. Destructive impulses, sexual and romantic awkwardness, ill equipped parents and a constant sense of feeling out of sorts in and with the world, there is a universality to much of this, and that feels crucially important.

Genres: Memoir, Nonfiction, Queer, LGBT

320 pages, Paperback

Published July 13, 2023

About the author

Juno Roche is a writer and campaigner whose work around gender, sexuality and trans lives has been funded by the likes of The Paul Hamlyn Foundation and described as 'provocative, cutting edge and innovative'. They studied Fine Art and Philosophy at Brighton and English Literature at Sussex, and writes for a wide range of publications including Bitch Magazine, Dazed, Vice, Broadly, Cosmopolitan, The i, i-D, The Independent, The Tate Magazine and Refinery29. They were born in Peckham and now live in the mountains of Andalusia. 
Juno's first book, Queer Sex, was published in 2018.
Their second book, Trans Power, was published inOctober 2019.
Gender Explorers, their third book, will be published in June 2020

Queer Sex is simply phenomenal. (Bitch Media)

Queer Sex is an audacious and inspiring challenge to a system that shames trans bodies and desires. Roche's words are a gift to anyone looking to open their minds and fall in love with the possibilities of love. (CN Lester, academic, musician and author of Trans Like Me)

Reviews

[Salomée Lou · Rating 5 out of 5]

This has just become one of my favourite memoirs. So fucking beautiful and raw and moving and funny and hopeful despite all the violence and sadness.
Juno Roche is an incredible writer. Phew, my heart needs a hug!
Highly recommend 🩷🩷🩷

[J. · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is breathtaking - for the beauty of the prose, which is masterful and unflinching; for the quiet, tired wisdom; for the devastating longing. It is the longing, and the anger, and the love that stays with me. The world is brutally unkind, and yet Juno Roche longs for it within stories of addiction, stigma, and families shattering apart.

It reminded me a little like Ocean Vuong’s On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous, with a rhythmic, poetic account of inter-generational trauma and the legacy of violence. It was poignant but difficult at times, as the middle-class daughter of a working-class mum who made it out of that life - it felt like being told whole stories when before I was only shown snippets, because my mum knew (and as Roche says in the book), once something is inside your head you cannot get it out, and my mum didn’t me to know of the violence and hopelessness.

Both nourishing and heart-wrenching, this memoir is witty and charming when positioning the COVID-19 pandemic against the trauma of HIV, when fruitlessly chasing sobriety to Egypt, when reminiscing about pubic lice. There is always a gut-punch in the beauty. I never thought I’d cry about pubic lice, but here we are.

[Claire · Rating 4 out of 5]

An interesting read, part Covid 19 memoir, part reflection on drug addiction, being trans and having lived with HIV for decades and part biography of a working class family steeped in poverty and violence. Which might sound disparate but actually work really well together. Whilst we were living through the start of Covid 19, I often wondered about the potential parallels with HIV/AIDS, so I found those parts of the book fascinating. The description of growing up in an environment of poverty and violence was visceral, occasionally, making me think of Douglas Stuart's Shuggie Bain but as this isn't fiction you get a much deeper understanding. An honest, reflective, fascinating, well written, queer memoir.

[Rosie · Rating 5 out of 5]

this was excellent. really moving and devastating, yet hopeful. also the best bit of pandemic adjacent literature I’ve read, whilst being a lot more than that. definitely need to read more of juno roche’s writing!!

[ffion · Rating 5 out of 5]

one of those books that stays with you

[Amanda Rosso · Rating 5 out of 5]

What an extraordinary achievement this memoir is: Juno Roche walks us through their family life, their history with drug use, their life with AIDS and their present dealing with COVID-19 during the first lockdown, while writing the book. This book is lucid, clever, profound and memorable, infused with a dreamlike atmosphere despite the harshness of the topic and the pain that flows throughout. There is a cathartic power in Roche's pages, a profound sense of honesty and genuine desire to reshape the narrative around illness and trauma, familial violence and intergenerational trauma, gender, loneliness and grief.
I for one am profoundly grateful to the author for the privilege of accompanying them on a journey that has been surely a painful one, but has stirred inside me the genuine need for deconstructing the ideas of what danger and safety are, what it means to be alive and how concepts such as illness and abuse need to shift from an individual to a collective meaning, to recognise each other as parts of an organism that is alive and pulsating with the lives of every each one of us, and it's our responsibility to make sure that everyone who's part of it can heal or live through illness and trauma with dignity and respect.

[Jack Bowman · Rating 3 out of 5]

Unsurprisingly quite a difficult and often bleak read albeit an extremely honest and personal one. That bleakness comes from the subject matter and the almost brutal openness that Roche writes with more than anything else. It’s the kind of book you want to end feeling hopeful and restored but instead left me pretty anxious - I think Roche has written it whilst still healing and it shows, which is both to her credit and is what made it a tough read for me personally. It’s not you it’s me ! (3.5*)

[Selina Foster · Rating 3 out of 5]

(3.75🌟) Second half of the book was such a gripping memoir and recount of a tumultuous life, loved the pacing and descriptions of past experiences (Egypt!). Took a while to warm for me to warm up to the style of writing and wasn’t fully engaged with the covid references, almost feels too soon but such an interesting perspective from Juno and her comparisons. However, coming to the end made me realise this context was necessary in building knowledge which makes up someone’s whole existence! Would read again!

[Katy Wheatley · Rating 4 out of 5]

Juno Roche, best known for her writing on trans issues, turns during lockdown to a vivid, disturbing and beautiful excavation of her own beginnings. A working class life fraught with intergenerational violence and problems of poverty, addiction and deep seated trauma in which the only way out seemed to be drugs, Roche found redemption and reinvention when it looked like all hope was gone. This is not an easy read, but it is revelatory.

[Josie · Rating 5 out of 5]

An absolutely beautiful book - hard and thorny yet so vulnerable and fragile, heartbreakingly sad yet also hilarious - words that linger in your mind long after you have read them, written with a pure honesty and integrity that it feels a privilege to be privy to Juno’s life and memories - this memoir is quite simply beautiful.

[Ellyse · Rating 5 out of 5]

🌱 unflinching

🌱 I liked how the book wasn’t chronologically written it instead kept one foot in the present and one in the past; offering interesting parallels between different pandemics, familial relationships, and desperate longing

🌱 The thread of intergenerational trauma and the ripples of that really rang true.

[franklin arren · Rating 5 out of 5]

this was beautiful and moving and one of the most honest memoirs (if u can call it that) i’ve read. juno is so honest with herself and it feels like an honour to read her slow self acceptance. she gives a genuine insight into addiction and generational trauma with a brutal empathy. would really recommend

[Wendy Armstrong · Rating 4 out of 5]

Brutally honest, meandering essays: I found this writer interesting & likeable. Some funny digressions (the bit about their crab offspring ...). I hope they keep on writing.

[Ben Robinson · Rating 5 out of 5]

Possibly one of the greatest books I’ve ever read - moving, funny, heartbreaking. So incredibly written! I want to read it all over again.

[Leah · Rating 4 out of 5]

It was a heavy read which meant points felt slow and hard to get through, but captured addiction so incredibly and transported me back to the hopelessness of COVID too