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Beautiful Scars

Steeltown Secrets, Mohawk Skywalkers and the Road Home

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Beautiful Scars

By: Tom Wilson
Narrated by: Tom Wilson
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National Bestseller · A CBC Best Nonfiction Book of the Year · Finalist for the Kobo Emerging Writer Prize · Finalist for the Hamilton Literary Awards

"Bunny told me there were secrets about me that she would take to the grave, secrets that no one would ever hear, including me . . ."

Tom Wilson always felt something wasn't quite right. His parents, Bunny and George, were much older than other kids' parents. There were no baby photos of him in the house. At school, classmates called him Indian, despite his parents' Irish-Quebecois background. And as he got older, friends, lovers and even family members remarked on his uncanny resemblance to Bunny's closest relative, her niece Janie Lazare, whose father was a Mohawk from Kahnawake, Quebec.

Tom wouldn't learn the truth about his identity until he was fifty-three, when a tour handler whose mother had known Tom's now deceased parents let it slip that he was adopted. It would be another two years until he worked up the courage to confront Janie with what the handler had told him, what all his life he had suspected. Janie--the woman whom Tom called cousin, whom he'd known his whole life, who had lived with Tom and Bunny after George died--immediately broke into tears and confessed. She was his biological mother.

In this incredible story about family and identity, carefully guarded secrets and profound acts of forgiveness, Tom Wilson writes about growing up as an outsider in two families--the family he lost, and the family who took him in. His story takes us from working-class Hamilton of the 1960s and '70s, neighbourhoods peopled by WWII vets, factory workers and fall-guy wrestlers, to today, as he continues his journey to connect with the man he now knows to be his father and with his Mohawk heritage and relatives, discovering Kahnawake chiefs and Brooklyn "skywalkers" among them.

With a rare gift for storytelling and a remarkable story to tell, Tom Wilson writes with unflinching honesty and extraordinary compassion about his search for the truth. It's a story about scars, about the ones that hurt us, and the ones that make us who we are. Entertainment & Celebrities Music Celebrity Sports Indigenous Authors
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I'd never given nuch thought to Tom Wilson. He just happened to be a member of one of my favourite bands where the other front stage members - Stephen Fearing and Colin Linden - drew my attention. It was only a mention about this book, live from the Shrewsbury Festival Stage, that alerted me to its existence. It's a full throttle tale of Tom's early life struggles to cope with hardship, alienation and some fairly blatent falsehoods. You really have to wonder why some families make the decisions that they do.

Against this background Tom throws himself into a full on Rock'n'Roll lifestyle as his talent develops. Ultimately it's not good for him emotionally, socially or musically. This is where I get conflicted. His self destructive behaviour appeared to be tolerared to an amazing degree as compensation for his remarkable talent. But he obviously hurt a lot of people, friends and family, along the way.

Only Tom could have narrated his autobiography. It's a gripping saga of an extreme individual as he searches for his true family and ethnic roots. I shall certainly have to search out his solo musical works. I hope he's happier now.

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