My Fault

by Billy Childish

A nightmarish voyage through a childhood blighted by mental and sexual abuse stumbles onward into adolescense, laying bare a young man's desperate attempts to make sense of a world distorted by alcohol, bullies and yes men. At turns hilarious and harrowing.

Genres: Music, Biography

320 pages, Paperback

First published December 1, 1991

About the author

Born Steven John Hamper, he is a cult figure in America, Europe and Japan. Billy Childish is by far the most prolific painter, poet, and song-writer of his generation. In a twenty year period he has published over 40 collections of his poetry, recorded over 100 full-length independent LP’s and produced over 2000 paintings.
Billy Childish left Secondary education at 16, an undiagnosed dyslexic. Refused an interview at the local art school he entered the Naval Dockyard at Chatham as an apprentice stonemason. During the following six months (the artist’s only prolonged period of employment), he produced some six hundred drawings in ‘the tea huts of hell'. On the basis of this work he was accepted into St Martin’s School of Art to study painting. However, his acceptance was short-lived and before completing the course he was expelled for his outspokenness and unorthodox working methods. With no qualifications and no job prospects Childish then spent some 12 years ‘painting on the dole’, developing his own highly personal writing style and producing his art independently.

Reviews

[Harry Whitewolf · Rating 5 out of 5]

I hate to repeat the tagline that comes with this first autobiographical-novel of Billy Childish’s, but this really is one of those books that ‘had to be written’. So I don’t care that the book sags a little in the middle, or that his mother’s rants can take up a chapter, because My Fault simply had to be written the way only Childish wanted to, and the only we he could.

Detailing his life growing up in the sixties and seventies, this is primarily about his childhood and ends when he’s twenty two – just as he’s become a shadow of that bastard man his father.
His father’s mostly absent for his childhood, and when he does show up, he’ll be drunk, abusive and repulsively nasty. Growing up in sheer poverty, with such a father, and with a ‘family friend’ who sexually abuses him (told with such frankness from a ten year old boy’s perspective), and with dyslexia (which in the sixties was simply: being a thicko), and with the artist’s coy and sensitive nature, this story gives the gritty details of why Childish turned out to be the angry, sensitive, drunk genius he is.

There are some glorious bits of poetic prose in this book that seethe and bite like a rabid dog drinking rotgut prison homebrew, like: “She had a cunt like an octopus. The hanging gardens of Babylon! It grabbed you by the balls and sucked you in, tight as a clam.”

I’m usually a stickler for good proofing, but if any books should be published as they’re written, it’s Childish’s. Reading other works by him that are written in his dyslexic prose are much better than this one that’s been corrected for mass marketing, so I wish I’d read the first edition of this. That’s my only grumble.

Billy Childish is the best kept secret of the arts. So I don’t recommend that you read his books and his poems, or hear his music, or view his paintings, ‘cos this is someone I’m a fan of who I want to keep for myself.

[Armando Olivas · Rating 3 out of 5]

The author, Childish is first and foremost most well known as a musician of "garage rock" years (1980's,1990's-now) before it was homogenized and corporatized by the likes such as the horrible, antithetical of rock and roll White Stripes. He paints, he writes, B. Childish avoids fame and pretense, whatever he continues to create remains to be punk rock, a living body of art not "art".

[Victoria · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book was initially difficult to get into. Like the first time you are intimate with someone the prose was fiddly and awkward. However, once in the midst of his rampant groove, I couldn't put this book down. I've always been a Childish fan, he has that innate ability to repulse and seduce all at the same time. Would definitely recommend this creative biography to Childish fans, as crass as it is.

[Stephanie · Rating 4 out of 5]

You want to talk about someone who has been through dire circomstances and lived to tell? Billy Childish is your man! This is a very insightful book into the life of a survivor of a young boy exposed to much too much in his life. The following is a blog I posted about Billy after seeing him in person in 2006. Enjoy!

7:38 PM - Billy Childish-Inspiring Artist
Current mood: touched
Category: Religion and Philosophy


On our last night in Sacramento we attended an evening of poetry and acoustic music with Billy Childish at Old Ironsides-a local club. We knew in advance of the trip that we would attend. I had no idea what an impression it would make on me.

For those of you who don't know Billy, he is a Brittish poet, artist and musician. He is probably in his mid to late 40's. He is dyslexic, grew up with an alcoholic father and was molested by an close family friend for many years. He himself has battled with alcoholism and to say he has had a troubled life would be a significant understatement.

What is really inspiring to me is how he turned his experiences into such intense and diverse art, poetry and music. Billy is an exemplary model of both self indulgence and self acceptance. Below is one of the poems that he read in Sacramento that I found particularly inspiring. To me, the sentiment of the poem is about how we are always looking at what is wrong on the outside world-and not addressing the fact that many of our problems lie within ourselves. In any case, I typed the poem below just as it appears in his book. Enjoy and be inspired!

p.s. the acoustic music set he played (accompanied by his wife on bass and a drummer) totally kicked ass:)

we have war becouse we love war

becouse we
want to push
to the front
and
have
all the prizes
to ourselfs

becouse love
is not enough
nor
are
new cars
or out of town shopping complexes
or mobile phone
or sourround-a-sound sterios
or 60 inch telivision screens
or ready prepaired meals
or hollidays in other peoples missery
or jesus
or budha
or being able to eat smoke and drink ourselfs to death
then cry that our hospitals are all shit

becouse
we need
to feel slighted
and
peeved
by the least
inconvenence
of the day
becouse the sun is not right
or our shoelaces are too tight
or
becouse
we hate our mothers
or our fathers
or our wifes
or our sisters
or our brothers
or techers for failing us
or people for failing us
or husbands for leaving us
or the sky
or the rain
or our bosses
or our children
or our werk mates
or pedophiles
or the mad
or car drivers
or pedestrians
or people on bikes
or people wearing the rong type of hats
or the rong shoes
or smoking cigarets
or not smoking cigarets
or drinking
or foregners
or faceists
or policeman
or peace marchers
but ultimately
ourselfs

[Julie Harrison · Rating 2 out of 5]

The actual story is very sad and one that I would have loved to have heard about. However, I did found the way it was written very difficult to read. I got about a quarter of the way through and decided to skip through it - finding that there was a lot of mentions of crude sexual habits I decided to finish it! Not for me.

[Jon Stclair · Rating 5 out of 5]

sometimes this book felt like it was shadowing me... felt a bit too close for comfort... but i couldn't put it down... brutal, funny and disturbing, the multi-talented mr. Childish left me wanting to embrace his younger self but he probably wouldn't've appreciated it anyway...

[Forest Juziuk · Rating 3 out of 5]

Sprawling life history, pretty dark w/ some incredible moments of actually calling people out by name for heinous acts w/o permission. Phwew. He revisited a few of the tales as full-on books later. Great moments but pretty unwieldy.

[Sarah · Rating 2 out of 5]

i *love* billy childish but this book was an UNRELENTING BUMMER! dang!

[Rod · Rating 4 out of 5]

Brutally, painfully honest.

[Alvin · Rating 2 out of 5]

Childish vividly evokes the miseries of childhood from a child's POV, but why? I quit a few chapters in.