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Here Comes the Sun
An inspirational and heart-wrenching memoir of fame, schizophrenia, struggle and love by Sunnyboys frontman Jeremy Oxley and his wife Mary Oxley Griffiths. Jeremy Oxley was diagnosed with schizophrenia aged 22, at the height of his fame as singer of the popular band Sunnyboys. Terrified and in denial, he tried to hide his diagnosis from family, band mates and friends, who attributed his erratic and sometimes terrifying behaviour to drug and alcohol abuse.Following harrowing experiences with the woeful mental health services of the day, Jeremy took himself off his prescription drugs and self-medicated with alcohol, gradually alienating friends and family alike till he became a hermit living in a small town in New South Wales, shut off from any kind of life or support.A Sunnyboys fan, Mary Griffiths was a nurse who had been widowed for five years with young twin boys. After being shocked to discover how Jeremy was living, she and her sons determined to find him and help him. At their first meeting, Mary was able to see through Jeremy's illness and recognise signs of the sensitive, beautiful and frightened man within. Her boys instantly loved him and he in turn was immediately calm around them.Jeremy's willingness to get well under Mary's guidance was driven by a deep desire to have the things we all mostly take for a loving family, security, and control of his health and life. Slowly, painfully, but together, Jeremy and Mary put everything into reclaiming his life and building a family.That struggle is told here for the first time by Mary and Jeremy, whose distinctive voices trace Jeremy's remarkable journey from darkness to the light, and from the depths of despair to hope and love. It will move and inspire all who read it.
- GenresMusic
361 pages, Kindle Edition
First published July 1, 2015
2 people are currently reading
20 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews
December 31, 2015
One that's probably more for Sunnyboy fans - I'm a bit young to even remember their music. I picked this up in the back of an interesting newspaper interview, but I found the book itself a little too linear and lacking the deeper insight I was hoping for.
February 28, 2016
Thoroughly enjoyed this account of Jeremy Oxley's recovery and rebirth as a talented musician, husband and father.
July 8, 2022
Loved reading about Kingscliff, Pottsville the local towns I have lived. The passion that Mary had to enhance Jeremy's life into a positive direction, that ended up being successful for him to get through his dark days and return to his old stomping grounds. Read this one in a day unable to put it down.
July 28, 2015
One of the best Australian documentaries in recent years was 'The Sunnyboy', directed by Kaye Harrison and screened on ABC television in 2013. Its focus was Jeremy Oxley, singer, songwriter and guitarist of the great Sydney-based pop band Sunnyboys, which burned brightly for a few years — its 1981 self-titled album is among the strongest debuts by any Australian band — before petering out amid the demands of 300-plus shows a year and a pair of less resonant follow-up releases.
The Sunnyboy provided an in-depth look at Oxley’s life since the band’s break-up. The intervening decades were not kind to him: afflicted by schizophrenia, which was diagnosed at 22, he became a socially isolated alcoholic. The film had a happy ending, however: in 2008, Oxley met Mary Griffiths, a kind nurse who helped transform his life and return him to the stage for a series of reunion gigs.
'Here Comes the Sun' offers the couple the chance to tell this story in their own words. Harrison’s film was a touching, sensitive and objective portrait of Oxley’s mental illness. This book is written in an iterative fashion, with Oxley and Oxley Griffiths taking turns to drive the narrative forward, chapter by chapter, from their childhoods through to the present day. Some overlap is to be expected with this stylistic decision, but it’s well-handled by the authors, and their differing perspectives on events and emotions becomes fascinating in later chapters, once they meet and their relationship begins in earnest.
Oxley Griffiths’s training as a nurse means she is well-equipped with the vocabulary and mindset that medicine and healthcare demand. Conversely, Oxley refuses to accept his schizophrenia. In the parlance of psychiatry, he has little insight into the reality of his condition; a lifelong illness that can’t be cured, only managed — which, with his wife’s help and patience, Oxley has been doing successfully for years now.
This unwillingness to accept his situation first appears in the book’s introduction, where he introduces himself as “musician, artist, painter, writer, poet and, apparently, schizophrenic”. It becomes a narrative tension — perhaps unintentionally — throughout: even in the final chapter, following a wildly successful Sunnyboys performance at the Sydney Opera House after the launch screening of 'The Sunnyboy', Oxley writes “I still wasn’t convinced that anybody would want to watch a documentary about an illness that I really didn’t have any more.”
However, perhaps it’s indicative of the insidious, pervasive, tricky nature of the illness itself that Oxley can still think and write in these terms. Many times, he writes of how he doesn’t wish to be perceived as a “lunatic” — and to be fair, who would? One wonders how much easier his path might have been if he had accepted the psychiatrist’s diagnosis at 22: “I’m sorry, you have schizophrenia. You will need to be on medication for the rest of your life.” Instead, Oxley shunned his prescriptions for years, preferring to self-medicate with alcohol in order to drown out the negative voices that plagued his mind, occasionally landing in trouble with the law as a result.
Like the documentary, this book has a happy ending, and it is wonderful to read of Oxley’s complete transformation from awkward outcast to committed family man. We’re left with the impression that he truly couldn’t have done it without Oxley Griffiths, a woman of remarkable strength and tolerance, whose previous two relationships ended in her partners’ severe illness and, in one case, premature death. For a time, both authors resigned themselves to living without romantic attachments: Oxley Griffiths mourned for her dead husband while singlehandedly raising her two young boys, while Oxley was so socially isolated that he barely had friends, let alone a partner. As advertised in the subtitle, theirs is a love story, above all else, and while occasionally moving — especially towards the end, when Oxley Griffiths describes their wedding day and reconstructs the emotional journey of her husband’s return to stage with his original band — the story is told plainly, in an almost conversational manner, as if these are transcripts of the spoken word.
It shows that neither author is a writer, and while this straightforward manner of factual, chronological recounting suits 'Here Comes the Sun', I did find myself wishing for tighter scenes and more detail. Still, this is a churlish complaint, for the point of the book’s existence is that these are two ordinary people who were seemingly destined to be together, no matter the odds stacked against them and despite the warnings of concerned family members and friends.
Ultimately their mutual love wins out and Oxley’s remarkable musical talent persists, as Oxley Griffiths observes with pride while watching her husband prepare for the Sunnyboys reunion shows. All the years of drinking and mental illness may have chipped away at many of his skills, but his musical ability appears untouched and ready to bloom once more.
(This review was originally published in The Weekend Australian on July 25 2015: http://www.theaustralian.com.au/arts/...)
The Sunnyboy provided an in-depth look at Oxley’s life since the band’s break-up. The intervening decades were not kind to him: afflicted by schizophrenia, which was diagnosed at 22, he became a socially isolated alcoholic. The film had a happy ending, however: in 2008, Oxley met Mary Griffiths, a kind nurse who helped transform his life and return him to the stage for a series of reunion gigs.
'Here Comes the Sun' offers the couple the chance to tell this story in their own words. Harrison’s film was a touching, sensitive and objective portrait of Oxley’s mental illness. This book is written in an iterative fashion, with Oxley and Oxley Griffiths taking turns to drive the narrative forward, chapter by chapter, from their childhoods through to the present day. Some overlap is to be expected with this stylistic decision, but it’s well-handled by the authors, and their differing perspectives on events and emotions becomes fascinating in later chapters, once they meet and their relationship begins in earnest.
Oxley Griffiths’s training as a nurse means she is well-equipped with the vocabulary and mindset that medicine and healthcare demand. Conversely, Oxley refuses to accept his schizophrenia. In the parlance of psychiatry, he has little insight into the reality of his condition; a lifelong illness that can’t be cured, only managed — which, with his wife’s help and patience, Oxley has been doing successfully for years now.
This unwillingness to accept his situation first appears in the book’s introduction, where he introduces himself as “musician, artist, painter, writer, poet and, apparently, schizophrenic”. It becomes a narrative tension — perhaps unintentionally — throughout: even in the final chapter, following a wildly successful Sunnyboys performance at the Sydney Opera House after the launch screening of 'The Sunnyboy', Oxley writes “I still wasn’t convinced that anybody would want to watch a documentary about an illness that I really didn’t have any more.”
However, perhaps it’s indicative of the insidious, pervasive, tricky nature of the illness itself that Oxley can still think and write in these terms. Many times, he writes of how he doesn’t wish to be perceived as a “lunatic” — and to be fair, who would? One wonders how much easier his path might have been if he had accepted the psychiatrist’s diagnosis at 22: “I’m sorry, you have schizophrenia. You will need to be on medication for the rest of your life.” Instead, Oxley shunned his prescriptions for years, preferring to self-medicate with alcohol in order to drown out the negative voices that plagued his mind, occasionally landing in trouble with the law as a result.
Like the documentary, this book has a happy ending, and it is wonderful to read of Oxley’s complete transformation from awkward outcast to committed family man. We’re left with the impression that he truly couldn’t have done it without Oxley Griffiths, a woman of remarkable strength and tolerance, whose previous two relationships ended in her partners’ severe illness and, in one case, premature death. For a time, both authors resigned themselves to living without romantic attachments: Oxley Griffiths mourned for her dead husband while singlehandedly raising her two young boys, while Oxley was so socially isolated that he barely had friends, let alone a partner. As advertised in the subtitle, theirs is a love story, above all else, and while occasionally moving — especially towards the end, when Oxley Griffiths describes their wedding day and reconstructs the emotional journey of her husband’s return to stage with his original band — the story is told plainly, in an almost conversational manner, as if these are transcripts of the spoken word.
It shows that neither author is a writer, and while this straightforward manner of factual, chronological recounting suits 'Here Comes the Sun', I did find myself wishing for tighter scenes and more detail. Still, this is a churlish complaint, for the point of the book’s existence is that these are two ordinary people who were seemingly destined to be together, no matter the odds stacked against them and despite the warnings of concerned family members and friends.
Ultimately their mutual love wins out and Oxley’s remarkable musical talent persists, as Oxley Griffiths observes with pride while watching her husband prepare for the Sunnyboys reunion shows. All the years of drinking and mental illness may have chipped away at many of his skills, but his musical ability appears untouched and ready to bloom once more.
(This review was originally published in The Weekend Australian on July 25 2015: http://www.theaustralian.com.au/arts/...)
July 2, 2019
Fantastic love story of an amazing artist
January 8, 2017
I picked this book up as I'm a fan of Australian Music and thought I could get some insight into an era that I just missed out on. I found the first chunk of the book engaging where the two stories were separate but when they joined I wanted to get more of an individual viewpoint of each scenario. The whole period of the bands heyday seemed to be over very quickly but then I guess the focus of the book is on the here and now and how the Jeremey of today draws upon that time. It felt quite repetitious towards the end as I was reading the same story twice. To me there were gaps, areas left unanswered for me and as a reader I felt a little unsatisfied with the ending (but hey, it's their story told how they wanted it told!). Maybe I'd feel differently if I was able to watch the documentary made at the same time as the events of the book. Still, it's an interesting look at the Aus music industry at a point in time and that even after 30+ years, we still value the music of that era.
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews