She may have been born with multiple medical abnormalities and will always be short-statured, but what Knight lacks in height, she makes up for in attitude.
The eldest child of dairy farmers in rural Victoria, Knight is now a writer and performer in Melbourne.
She makes it clear in her memoir that she has always been surrounded with love from her immediate family, as well as aunts, uncles, cousins and grandparents.
The Mormon religious denomination was also a focal point for the whole family’s life. Between detailing the medical tests and procedures she went through as a child and teenager, she gives an insight into the beliefs and practices of that denomination. The young Jessica took her position as eldest child very seriously, so she would clean the house and care for her siblings while her parents were busy milking. Her life seemed full of blood tests and surgical procedures to help with the multiple conditions with which she was born.
Two invasive surgical operations were needed when she developed scoliosis, and then a post-operative back brace. That was not the end of her medical problems, all of which she details, along with the usual teenage angst of making and losing friendships, and always being ‘vertically challenged’ as well as having vision problems.
Knight has made it clear her early life was not easy, but she found joy in some of her studies, hoping to be an artist and a writer when she left school … and maybe work in a bookshop. One extra sadness was her mother’s own health struggles.
It is only in the Epilogue, as a student at a regional university, that she finally feels she has ‘found her tribe’ enjoying many things her religious upbringing had warned against.
Reviewed by Jennifer Somerville
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
I’m a writer and performer. I live and work on the unceded lands of the Wurundjeri people of the Kulin Nation.
I’m interested in exploring themes of politics, art and the self, through my performing and personal writing. I have created and published zines in collaboration with artist MCdrawn.
My work has appeared in a variety of publications. I am an experienced public speaker. I was a recipient of The Besen Family foundation fellowship in 2018.
Thanks to a Creative Victoria grant I wrote and performed my show Mormon Girl in 2019 at The Melbourne Fringe Festival. A show about faith, sexuality, chronic illness, disability and mental health and learning all the things that my Bishops, parents and doctors never taught me. I have a piece published in the anthology Growing Up Disabled In Australia published by Black Ink in 3021.
I was a Wheeler Centre Hot Desk Fellow. I have participated in panels and readings at writers festivals including Red Dirt Poetry Festival 9 Alice Springs), National Young Writers Festival, Emerging Writers Festival and Melbourne Digital Writers Festival.
I have a cat. Its name is Mister Bread.
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