Many Happy Returns

‘Birthday’ is the latest novel by Meredith Russo and is described on the cover as ‘A love story 18 years in the making’. As I started reading the book and with the blurb fresh in my mind I began to feel I knew where the story was going between Eric and lifelong friend Morgan, but that didn’t stop me enjoying this emotional and at times hard hitting novel. The journey of how there were going to get there had me hooked.

The novel follows the lives of close friends Eric and Morgan, dropping into their lives the same day each year for six years which happens to be their shared birthday. ‘Birthday’ explores the relationship between  the two friends as both wrestle with the pains of growing up as teenagers in small town America, and for Morgan there is the added issue of realising his true gender and what to do about it, along with dealing with the death of his mother. This format worked well, and you could clearly see the development of the two characters into teenagers each year. And with each character telling a bit of the story I felt like I was reading extracts from their diaries which made it feel very personal.

Much of the novel deals with Morgan’s growing awareness that he is a girl stuck in a boy’s body. In my teens I struggled to accept my sexuality and though I can’t imagine what is it like growing up as transgender, I can relate to Morgan’s experiences and feel that Morgan’s character really captures the pain, the anger, the loneliness of that journey of trying to sort out who you are when you are different. For me ‘Birthday’ gives a real heart felt insight into the transgender experience. Yet help was there in my friends – when I finally reached out to them, as Morgan did with Eric. While Eric has problems of his own at home to deal with, as the story progresses it’s clear that Eric’s biggest concern is Morgan and trying to work out what he can do to help him even when it feels like they are growing apart.  It’s surprising what a good friend can know about you without you telling them.   

For me my favourite section of the book is when Morgan, after buying makeup through the Kmart self-service, goes home and having taken notes from you tube videos puts on the makeup for the first time and sees her true self looking back in the mirror. “I blink slowly, because this is me” says Morgan.  This whole section is beautifully written, and I could feel the excitement, the giddiness and emotion that was building up inside Morgan as the makeup went on. The birthday letters left for Morgan by his mother before she died also touched the heart and brought a tear to the eye at times (I recommend you keep a hanky handy for the last letter). It's a touching way to allow the reader to find out more about Morgan’s mother and allow her to still be part of Morgan’s teenage years.

Overall this is an excellent novel from Russo, one that explores the issues around growing up as a teenager today with all the pressures and expectations this brings from friends and family, as well as giving a genuine insight into growing up transgender too as part of this. We’re all different and in the end this novel celebrates that. I’ll leave the last words to Morgan’s mother - “Whatever kind of person you become, no matter how different from my daydream, I will treasure you”.