Diary of a Misfit

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NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF 2022 by The Washington Post, Boston Globe, Booklist, Kirkus Reviews, New York Public Library, Minneapolis Star Tribune

Part memoir, part sweeping journalistic saga: As Casey Parks follows the mystery of a stranger’s past, she is forced to reckon with her own sexuality, her fraught Southern identity, her tortured yet loving relationship with her mother, and the complicated role of faith in her life.

“Most moving is Parks’s depiction of a queer lineage, her assertion of an ancestry of outcasts, a tapestry of fellow misfits into which the marginalized will always, for better or worse, fit.” —The New York Times Book Review

When Casey Parks came out as a lesbian in college back in 2002, she assumed her life in the South was over. Her mother shunned her, and her pastor asked God to kill her. But then Parks’s grandmother, a stern conservative who grew up picking cotton, pulled her aside and revealed a startling secret. “I grew up across the street from a woman who lived as a man,” and then implored Casey to find out what happened to him. Diary of a Misfit is the story of Parks’s life-changing journey to unravel the mystery of Roy Hudgins, the small-town country singer from grandmother’s youth, all the while confronting ghosts of her own.

For ten years, Parks traveled back to rural Louisiana and knocked on strangers’ doors, dug through nursing home records, and doggedly searched for Roy’s own diaries, trying to uncover what Roy was like as a person—what he felt; what he thought; and how he grappled with his sense of otherness. With an enormous heart and an unstinting sense of vulnerability, Parks writes about finding oneself through someone else’s story, and about forging connections across the gulfs that divide us.”Diary of a Misfit is at once dewy-eyed and diligent, capricious and capacious, empathetic and exacting. It’s as richly textured as a pot of gumbo. As a work of autobiography, it’s maximalist; subtitled A Memoir and a Mystery, it certainly is both of those things, but it’s also an assiduous family history, a decades-spanning community chronicle à la Sarah Broom’s The Yellow House, a coming-out narrative, a dive into Christian denominations, a wrestling with Southern heritage… Most moving is Parks’s depiction of a queer lineage, her assertion of an ancestry of outcasts, a tapestry of fellow misfits into which the marginalized will always, for better or worse, fit.” —Michelle Hart, New York Times Book Review (cover review)

“Parks…[is] a vivid storyteller…Readers familiar with her work in the New Yorker and the New York Times Magazine know her as a thoughtful, precise journalist who communicates her characters’ humanity and the stakes of a story through evocative details….Parks’s writing shines in the story that she can meticulously report: her own…Parks is an exceptional chronicler of her family and experience. She leans into the beats of stories she’s expertly honed over the years…She manages the rare feat of writing about her family with both an awareness of its flaws and a respect for privacy. She chooses revealing anecdotes carefully, alluding to family challenges that aren’t hers to share. A self-described listener, she chronicles her pain at a remove…Some scenes feel straight out of Mary Karr, but without the raw rancor…a compelling triumph” –Charley Locke, The Washington Post

“[A] stunning work of memoir and reportage…. Delving deep into ideas of sexuality, identity, otherness, and love, Diary of a Misfit is a must-read.” —Sarah Neilson, Them

“A beautifully written and deeply reported epic about what it means to be Southern, what it means to be queer, what it means to belong to a family. Casey Parks is a tender, brilliant storyteller. I was haunted and moved by this account of the different Americas she inhabits.” —Claire Dederer, author of Love and Trouble

“Parks’ engrossing book is an excavation—emotional, familial, spiritual, and perhaps above all else, regional. The Louisiana she can’t leave behind—and one mysterious inhabitant in particular—haunt her early adulthood as she grapples with what it means to be a daughter, a writer, an outlier, and, in her own way, a believer.” —Ariel Levy, author of The Rules Do Not Apply

“…the beauty of Diary of a Misfit is that it sits in that space, allowing Parks to unfold her family’s history, her understanding of herself, and her obsession with Roy slowly and methodically…
In the process, she also beautifully portrays her interview subjects in the South and what she both loves and finds painful about home. This blend of reportage, research, and memoir has been blooming recently, with books like The Yellow House by Sarah M. Broom and My Autobiography of Carson McCullers by Jenn Shapland exemplifying the interconnectedness of the personal, political, historical, and academic realms. Parks’ book is a wonderful addition to the genre.” —Ilana Masad, NPR

“Roy Hudgins, [is] the intriguing subject of journalist Casey Parks’s riveting first book…what gives Diary of a Misfit its unique and lasting impact is the task undertaken and accomplished by Parks’s memoirist self: to understand and rid herself of self-loathing…. Her moving, empowering, searching tale is one of the modern American South, of mother-daughter breaking and bonding, of the pernicious effects of homophobia and bullying and hate…. Parks has written a memoir that will serve as a beacon for many others still yearning to no longer feel like misfits.” —Meredith Maran, Oprah Daily

“You can’t look away from the riveting opening sentence of Casey Parks’ spellbinding Diary of a Misfit… It draws you quickly in to her atmospheric tale of self discovery after coming out as a lesbian to her mother in her small Louisiana town… Like Harper Lee, Parks evokes the simmering suspicions of a small Southern town. Like Eudora Welty, she tells a poignant story of people trying to fit into a way of life that once suited them but no longer wears well. And like Truman Capote, she packs her memoir with eccentric characters… Parks’ dazzling narrative gift imbues Diary of a Misfit with all the makings of a great Southern story that readers won’t be able to get out of their minds.” —Henry L. Carrigan Jr, BookPage (starred review)

“Parks’ work of self-investigation is a fascinating, engrossing tale about identity and belonging.” —Booklist (starred review)

“A tantalizing blend of personal history and reportage…. A brilliantly rendered and complex portrait of Southern life alongside a tender exploration of queer belonging. Parks’s writing is a marvel to witness.” —Publishers Weekly (starred review)

“Journalism becomes literature in this memorable meditation on identity, belonging, and the urge to find understanding.” —Kirkus Reviews (starred review)

“Reading Casey Parks’ compelling Diary of a Misfit is like assembling a double-sided jigsaw puzzle. Sometimes maddening, sometimes exhilarating, ultimately rewarding. It is a master class in how to write an atypical, exemplary memoir. Parks reconstructs haunting and traumatic memories at the same time that she focuses on objective investigative journalism, relying on the resources of interviews, photographs, library microfilm, and an elusive diary. The fulfilling discovery is an absorbing geography of the heart—as much about places (Louisiana, Mississippi, Portland, New York City) as it is about people…Her grandmother’s undying curiosity about the mystery of what happened to Roy provokes what becomes this illuminating semblance of an autobiography wrapped in an elusive documentary linked to someone else’s unknown history… Diary of a Misfit: A Memoir often reads like a remarkable novel with a long list of memorable characters, a captivating story line, and a definitive affirmation of authentic lives. If, as she says, people write because they “want to be understood and remembered” Parks has admirably achieved that lofty goal.” —Robert Allen Papinchak, The Oregonian

“In Diary of a Misfit, Parks’s commitment to storytelling is paramount. The book is an immersive, expansive look at the world of small-town life and those who are forever marked by these spaces. Entwined in this nuanced narrative lies a thread regarding the challenge of empathy…. The tension that keeps Parks suspended between geographic regions speaks to a universal experience: the ache for a sense of belonging fed by a common love for home. That attachment is what redeems the misfits and brings them into the fold. This is a loving and unflinching portrait of a search for community, imperfect but constant. . . Diary of a Misfit is a call to linger at the table and invite others to join us.” —Lauren LeBlanc,  The Boston Globe

“Although Parks’s writing is elegant and descriptive, what is most compelling about Diary of a Misfit is how brilliantly organized it is. All at once, we get a biography, a memoir, a family history, and the active history of a place that most people are unfamiliar with. The book acts as a kind of living archive of the lives of people who history tends to forget…In the same vein as books like Sarah Broom’s The Yellow House, Diary of a Misfit acts as a testament to the lives of people who are often written out of history.” —Stef Rubino, Autostraddle

“Parks’ family members and the people of Delhi have backstories more captivating than some fictional characters…The product is a moving exploration of the role people we’ve never met can play in our lives and about coming to appreciate, as Parks’ mother puts it in the book, the ‘funky stank of home.’” —Kaylee Poche, Gambit

“The suspense continues until there are only a few pages left in this angsty, engrossing memoir” –Terri Schlichenmeyer, Gay & Lesbian Review

“[a] compelling debut…Diary of a Misfit provides an insightful entry in a tradition of memoirs by Southerners reckoning with a sense of dislocation….Parks pours all her journalistic skill into Diary of a Misfit, shoring up legend with research and context while acknowledging the limited facts available after the passing of decades. But what makes Diary so moving is Parks’ artful handling of her own vulnerability within these events. The result is an absorbing, compassionately rendered page-turner that lingers in the mind.” –Emily Choate, Chapter 16CASEY PARKS is a Washington Post reporter who covers gender and family issues. She was previously a staff reporter at the Jackson (Miss.) Free Press and spent a decade at The Oregonian, where she wrote about race and LGBTQ+ issues and was a finalist for the Livingston Award. Her articles have appeared in The New York Times Magazine, The New Yorker, The Oxford American, ESPN, USA Today, and The Nation. A former Spencer Fellow at Columbia University, Parks was most recently awarded the 2021 J. Anthony Lukas Work-in-Progress Award for her work on Diary of a Misfit. Parks lives in Portland.Prologue
(2002)

A FEW MONTHS AFTER my pastor asked God to kill me, my mom ran to the bathroom, and I ran after her. She shut the door before I reached it. I knocked, but she didn’t answer. The rest of our family was in the dining room, eating spareribs at my grandma’s good table, or maybe, by then, they were listening to hear what I’d say to my mother. I pushed the bathroom door open. My mom was sitting on the toilet, bent over, crying into her hands. It was a small bathroom, only as wide as my wingspan, and my mom was heavy enough that she often told people with some mix of pride and horror that doctors considered her morbidly obese. I stepped around her, squeezed myself into a space between the toilet and the tub, then I touched her back. She spoke without looking at me.

“I could lose my job,” she said, half whispering, half crying. My mom answered phones at a church for nine dollars an hour, and my dad sprayed bugs for less than that. They had no savings account, no reserve to cover whatever my love life cost them. I knew my mom was right: One disapproving preacher could bankrupt our family.

“Mom,” I said. “I’m not going to be gay anymore.”

I had kissed only one girl one time. Her name was Ellen. We’d been listening to Pink Floyd and drinking Jones soda in the dark when Ellen leaned toward me. My twin-sized dorm bed felt like a gulf I’d never cross, but then the song crackled, my heart beat triple speed, and the space between us disappeared. Her lips had been so much softer than a boy’s. We’d kissed for just a moment, not even the length of the chorus, but those few seconds felt like a revelation I wasn’t sure I could forget. I told my mom I was gay a few weeks later, in church, on Easter Sunday. I did not tell her about the kiss.

In the bathroom, my mom cried so hard her body shook, and I racked my mind for ways to fix myself. It was 2002, the summer after my freshman year of college, and I was stuck in West Monroe, Louisi- ana, until at least August. I wouldn’t see Ellen all summer. She lived in Jackson, Mississippi, a few miles away from the private liberal arts col- lege I was attending on scholarship. Maybe that break was long enough, I told myself. Maybe if I didn’t see Ellen, maybe if I kissed the right guy, I would feel straight again. I thought, suddenly, of the tall teenage boy who worked alongside me Friday nights at Blockbuster Video.

“Mom,” I said. “I’m going to date Richard from Blockbuster. He’s six foot five, like Aidan in Sex and the City.”

My mom’s nose started to run, so I pulled a few squares of toilet paper off the roll and handed them to her. I wished I could tell her about that transformative kiss. I had told my mom about every kiss since I was fourteen, when an exchange student from Mexico smashed his lips against my teeth during the homecoming dance. I’d come home late and beaming, and my mother had driven me straight to Waffle House, even though it was after midnight and my hair spray had stopped working. I’d described everything—his cologne, the way his spit had overwhelmed me, the moment he’d whispered, “I love you.” My mom ordered a second plate of cheese-covered hash browns and asked me what song had been playing. I told her it was “Love of a Lifetime,” then she slow-danced with her fork toward the jukebox to see if the Waffle House had it. I’d told my mom about every other boy I’d kissed—six in the four years since—but watching her sob in my grandma’s bathroom that Fourth of July, I knew I would never tell her about the Jones soda or the Pink Floyd song. I would never tell her about the girl whose lips I imagined every night while I fell asleep.

My mom cried without words or sounds, and I told her about Rich- ard’s car. It was a beat-up sedan, and his head touched the top of the sag- ging roof. His hands were big, and his Blockbuster uniform was so short it showed his torso. My mom listened, but she didn’t say anything. I sat on the side of the bathtub. I knew she thought Satan had claimed me. She’d told the president of my college and any professor whose phone number she could find on the school’s website that I would spend eter- nity in Hell. She’d even persuaded a campus security guard to barge into my room periodically to make sure I wasn’t doing anything gay. Aside from that one kiss, I was never doing anything gay, but it didn’t matter. Just a few nights earlier, she’d told me that thinking of me made her want to throw up.

“Mom?”

I wanted to tell my mother that I didn’t want to lose her, not forever, not for the summer, but when she looked up, I saw that her mascara had run black rivers down her face, and I lost my will. She’d forced me to wear mascara in middle school, but I’d never learned to put it on myself, so I didn’t wear it anymore. I knew she would reapply hers before we left the bathroom—she believed in makeup the way she believed in God—and I considered asking her to put some on me, too. Maybe then, I thought, she’d love me again.

The bathroom door banged open before I could ask. My grandma stood in the entryway, wearing black slacks and a lime-green V-neck T-shirt. She threw her hands up, exasperated, then she jigsawed her way into a spot near the sink.

“Rhonda Jean,” she said, jabbing a finger at my mother. “Life is a buffet. Some people eat hot dogs, and some people eat fish. She likes women, and you need to get the fuck over it.

“Now come eat,” she said, then let herself back out.

I waited a minute, stunned. Some people eat fish? I swallowed hard. I asked my mom if I could do anything, but she didn’t answer. Instead, she pulled a stream of toilet paper from the roll and used it to wipe away the ruined mascara. Neither of us mentioned my grandma’s speech. My mom threw the paper into the little trash can under the sink, then she looked at me from the toilet.

“Can you get my makeup bag?”

THE REST OF THE day passed in a blur. I ate banana pudding alone in the carport. I read Beowulf in the backyard. I had started to imagine myself as someone outside of my family, and I believed then that if I read all the classics, the rest of my years would somehow be better than the eighteen I’d already lived. I barely understood Old English, but I pressed on until the voices in the house quieted, until my mom and everyone else went to the carport to smoke. I opened the back door. I found my grand- mother in the kitchen, washing the serving spoons we’d left behind. She turned off the water, then wiped her hands on the dish towel she kept tucked into her pants pocket.

“Sit down,” she said.

Though she’d defended me in the bathroom, I was nervous to spend any time alone with my grandmother. She was tough, foul-mouthed, and prone to yelling. She wanted the TV off, the screen door closed, and everyone’s shoes wiped free of dirt. I couldn’t remember a time she’d ever told me she loved me. She’d already cleaned the cherry dining table, so we sat down at the smaller, rustic pine frame she kept in the kitchen. She’d found it in a dumpster years ago, painted it white, then declared it “good as new,” but it wobbled as I leaned into it. We sat there awhile without talking. My grandmother fumbled with a pack of Virginia Slims, and I ran my hands over the buzz cut I’d given myself in Jackson. My grandma cleared her throat.

“I grew up across the street from a woman who lived as a man,” she said.

I leaned closer. This was 2002, years before people began signing their emails with their pronouns. There was no Caitlyn Jenner, no trans- gender tipping point. There was only my grandma, making the most unlikely of declarations at a wobbly pine table while our family members smoked nearby. My grandmother had spent her childhood forty miles away, in a rural town called Delhi. Though Delhi was spelled like the capital of India, people in Louisiana pronounced it Dell-HIGH.

The man’s name was Roy, my grandma said. He was five foot flat with a sandy blond crew cut and skin so fair it blistered in the sun. Roy made his living out in the elements, picking cotton or mowing lawns, and his face stayed freckled because of it. In the evenings, my grandma said, he sat on his porch and strummed Hank Williams songs for a dozen neighborhood kids. Roy sang, too, but his voice never dropped low enough to hit Hank’s deeper notes.

“It was the most beautiful music I ever heard,” my grandma told me.

I’d only met one trans person—a trans guy who hadn’t changed his name or pronouns yet, just the hoped-for trajectory of his life—and I asked my grandmother questions that day I wouldn’t ask now. I asked about Roy’s body. I asked if anyone knew he was really a woman. My grandma shook her head no. Roy’s real identity, she said, was a secret. He was raised by a lady named Jewel Ellis, but Jewel was not his real mother.

“On her deathbed,” my grandma said, “Jewel pulled my mother close to her, and she said, ‘Roy is as much a woman as you or I.’”

Jewel said she’d met Roy when he was a little girl named Delois. My grandmother couldn’t remember where they’d lived—maybe Arkansas, maybe Missouri—but Jewel said that Roy’s real parents abused him.

“So Jewel stole Roy,” my grandma said. “And thank God she did.”

My brain short-circuited with questions. When had Delois become Roy? Had Jewel told anyone else? Did Roy want to be a man? I bit my fingernails and looked at my grandma, a sixty-two-year-old with short gray spokes for hair. She wasn’t wearing makeup, I realized. She never wore makeup.

“What did you think of Roy?” I asked. “Were you shocked?”

My grandma reached for my hand. “Honey, it didn’t matter. Everyone loved Roy, because he was a good, Christian person.”

I wanted to believe my grandma. I wanted to believe that people would accept me just because I was good. I wanted to believe that my mother would forgive me, that she’d love me again the way Jewel seemed to love Roy. But could I call myself a Christian? When Ellen kissed me, I’d felt a light inside. So that was what kissing was supposed to feel like. There’d been no extra spit, no time to worry whether our tongues would meet up right. It was the kind of magic I’d only experienced in church.

“Grandma? Was Roy happy?”

My grandmother said she didn’t know. Once, long ago, Roy had been the most important person in her life, but she’d lost touch with him in the 1950s, and she wasn’t sure if he was still alive. His whole existence, she said, was a mystery.

“It’s eaten at me all these years,” she said. “Am I going to die without finding out?”

My grandma picked up her cigarettes, then she headed to the carport to smoke. I sat at the table, alone for half an hour, imagining Roy. My grandmother said he wore Wrangler jeans and a big belt buckle. Still, he was fuzzy in my mind. I pushed my brain to fill in the outlines, and eventually, I scooted away from the table. Over time, my reasons for wondering about Roy have changed, and I can’t remember anymore what compelled me that day. I stood. I traced my grandma’s path toward the carport. I stepped down into the fog of her cigarette smoke. I know the rest of my family must have been there, but when I think about that day, all I see is myself, standing in the smoke, head angled up as if I were brave.

“I’ll go to Delhi,” I announced. “I’ll find out about Roy.”US

Additional information

Weight	23.8 oz
Dimensions	1.2800 × 6.4800 × 9.5300 in
Imprint	Knopf
Format	General Trade
ISBN-13	09780525658535
ISBN-10	052565853X
Author	Casey Parks
Audience	General / adult
BISAC	BIO031000, BIO002000
Subjects	mystery books, lgbt, pride, identity, true story, united states, gay, south, BIO002000, daughter, faith, biographies, Sociology, young adult books, lgbt books, coming out, autobiographies, best books 2022, memoirs and biographies, grandmas, diary of a misfit, misfit, diary of a misfit casey parks, diary of a misfit a memoir and a mystery, mom, religion, feminist, feminism, BIO031000, historical, trans, queer, spirituality, inspiration, relationship, family, history, biography, Memoir, sex, lesbian, love, motherhood, mother, gender, death, memory