I first heard of Kevin Sessums’ novel Mississippi Sissy on Josh & Josh’s blog a couple months back. Before long it was being featured everywhere - including in Out, on Towleroad and DailyKos. I decided that I had to get a copy and check it out myself.

Mississippi Sissy is Kevin Sessums’ memoir of growing up in the South during the 60s. Sessums is the sissy, a taunt his father called him because of his disinterest in typical boy activities. Kevin, or Kevinator as his father called him, didn’t mind being a sissy, he embraced his differences, which were mildly encouraged by his mother.

Kevin’s mother was his muse. She was an avid reader and fan of the arts, and she instilled these same interests in him at an early age. Reading was an escape for Kevin and he often hid under his grandmother’s Singer sewing machine and read to his imaginary friend, Epiphany, a young black woman who was “born in the TV set”, Kevin’s other escape from reality.

Kevin suffered many hardships in his early years. His father, a local basketball legend and coach, was killed in a car accident. The following year his mother died of cancer. Kevin and his two siblings moved in with his grandparents, who were much less tolerant of his sissy behaviors than his mother.

Kevin’s closest childhood friend was his grandparents maid, Matty May, who would go on to change his life in many ways. Matty May was the voice of Kevin’s conscience. In a time when the Civil Rights Movement was sweeping the South, to much resistance from Kevin’s family, Matty May taught Kevin the value of equality, something he would cherish the rest of his life.

After high school, Kevin enrolled at a Methodist college in Jackson. His time in Jackson served as both a high and low point in Kevin’s life. Kevin made many friends in Jackson’s arts community, the closest of which was Frank Hains. One night after returning home from visiting his family, Kevin found Frank dead in his bedroom, beaten with a crowbar. It was yet another tragic loss in young Kevin’s life.

What I find so interesting about Kevin’s novel is the detailed firsthand account it provides of growing up gay in the South in the 60s and 70s. Society’s attitude towards gays and lesbians has changed so rapidly in the past 10 years that gay men in their 20s, such as myself, have had such difference experiences going through a similar life journey - coming out - as those that went through it only a few decades earlier and those that are going through it now.

I highly recommend that you head out to the bookstore or library and pick up a copy of Mississippi Sissy, you won’t be disappointed.