Dispatch From The Field: Joe Says This Memoir "shattered any of the glorified illusions I had about the life of a gypsy."

A shocking memoir that is equal parts Angela’s Ashes and Running with Scissors Mikey Walsh’s father and grandfather were champion bareknuckle boxers in England’s Gypsy Community. But Mikey had no interest in fighting. He was proud of his heritage and loved his mother and sister, but as he grew older he came to realize he had a secret that would never be accepted: he was gay.

Gypsy Boy reveals, for the first time, what life is really like among the Romany Gypsies. It’s a culture apart, one that is equally more criminal and more puritanical than our own. A #1 Sunday Times bestseller in the U.K., Gypsy Boy is a one-of-a- kind memoir of a world we know little about, one that is fascinating, heartbreaking and unforgettable.

Joe says:
"In Gypsy Boy, author Mikey Walsh takes the reader into the fascinating, yet brutal, world of the Romany Gypsies in England.  Reading Walsh's memoir shattered any of the glorified illusions I had about the life of a gypsy. A life on the road, in cold and dreary trailers, with little education and the constant threat of violence is hard enough, but when you are a young man coming to terms with your sexuality, and forced to face the fact that you will never satisfy your father's dreams for you, it is a wonder Walsh lived to tell his tale.

The men in the Walsh family are fighters... bare knuckle boxing is their sport, and the training is brutal: it consists mostly of beatings by his father, and frequent beatings by other boys. Every time Mikey loses a match, his father beats him. Walsh doesn't flinch when it comes to telling his story. You may grow to hate his father as much as Mikey does. It's not only Mikey who gets beaten. His mom, his siblings, even his father. And then there's the sexual abuse at the hands of his uncle. Again, unflinching and relentlessly told. At times I wanted to cover my eyes and make it all go away, and at the same time, I couldn't stop reading.

The memoir is told almost as if the author were sitting in the room telling his story over a few pints. His immediate first-person narration effectively brings the horrors and small joys of his childhood to life. And while it may not sound like a story one would willingly read, it is a book I'm glad to have read. Not only does Walsh describe contemporary gypsy life in the U.K., he does so with a surprising compassion and respect. Despite the years of abuse, he is proud of his culture & heritage, and proud of how he overcame some of the darker sides of that heritage to become the man he is today."