Surviving The Trauma Of Foster Care

About Courage by Mickey C. Fleming (Holloway House, Paper)

In his autobiography, About Courage, Mickey C. Fleming, a black gay man from Washington, D.C., relates the story of the evening he sat in a friend's home and revealed, over a glass of Riunite wine, his childhood experiences while in foster care. His friend exclaimed: "You have a great story to tell. You should write a book!" Fleming, at first rebuffed the idea with the remark: "I'm not a celebrity."

It's true , 99 percent of the autobiographies and biographies published each year are by or about the famous. To be quite honest, if this book had not been sent to me for review, I probably would have given it scant, if any, attention. Not because it dealt with foster care--an important and timely subject--but because its author, an unknown, was dropped in our midst without any introduction. After all, it's asking a lot to expect people to plunk down $2.95, plus tax, to read the life story, or confessions, of someone you never heard of.

In fact, while reading About Courage, I kept wishing that Fleming, who spent virtually all of his childhood in foster care, had introduced himself in the pages of a magazine, say Essence magazine's annual men's issue, rather than in a 224-page book. Despite all of the ups and downs in his 33 years, there still isn't enough compelling material here to warrant a lengthy retelling. A 2,000-word magazine piece would have been more fitting. His life as an absurd, self-hating, confused, and rebellious gay adolescent isn't really all that remarkable. Aside from giving current foster kids the feeling that they too can rise above their situation as well as providing them with a resilient role model (he goes on to college, later landing a job as an electrical draftsman), About Courage otherwise doesn't offer any profound insights into the foster care system or the foster child.  As a reader, it stirred no outrage in me. In fact, it would have been better if he had written about the Washington, D.C.-based orphanage, Junior Village, where he had spent some time as a child. (It was closed in 1973, after 26 years in existence, writes Fleming, "because of an alleged history of abuse of the very children it was designed to help.") All we're offered really is a succession of horror stories: his sexual victimization by the older boys at the orphanage, the on-the-job harassment of him by male co-workers because of his sexuality, his reunion with his mentally ill mother (strangely this episode is twice recounted--in Chapters 1 and 17, in almost identical words), his eviction from an apartment he shared with a resentful, irresponsible heterosexual couple who misuse the rent money he's given them.

Despite a few flaws in the book, it is clear that Mickey Fleming has writing talent. It will be interesting to see what his next book, if there is to be one, will be about. I hope it won't be a sequel. I also hope he'll use his own photo for the dust jacket and not a model's. If, in the words of one of the characters in the book, he and pop singer Prince "could pass for brothers," why the subterfuge?

This article was originally published in the Chicago-based gay and lesbian publication, Outlines (February 1990).