God's Other Children: A London Memoir

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A worthy contender for the coveted Polari First Book Prize, this non-fiction emotional roller coaster is earning high praise from enthused readers. A very different and distinctive reader event by Vernal Scott - a black gay Londoner and former head of HIV services. His writing is soulful, raw, and unashamedly human. He has successfully revealed gay people as holistic and multi-racial rather than just sexual and white, as is too often the case. But there is much much more here.

Following a wide-ranging prologue, this dramatic true story starts out in happy but poor 1930s Jamaica. Scott’s ‘Windrush’-generation parents move to 1950s London, where the substance of this 520-page biog-come-novel really begins, taking the reader up to the present day. Tragedies and taboo issues are frequent and there are no fictional characters or scenarios, so you find yourself immersed in the emotional authenticity of each page. The mood could be described as dark and disturbing in places , but the issues are always starkly human: unrequited love, hate, and loss; sex, sexuality and ‘coming out’; religion and homosexuality; disease, death and dying; domestic violence and child chastisement/abuse; divorce; racism and homophobia; prejudice and equality challenges at home and abroad; gay/lesbian baby-making and parenting; fathers and family court; mental health, depression and suicidal bids. Even voodoo and the paranormal make a surprising appearance, as does the likes of HRH Diana, Princess of Wales, among others. In their respective forewords, Lord Paul Boateng says the book has “a searing honesty”, and Peter Tatchell, the renowned human rights activist, refers to it as “painful and shocking in its exposure of raw prejudice.” Sir Nick Partridge, CEO of the Terrence Higgins Trust, describes the book as “remarkable, sobering and powerful.”

Most compellingly, Scott relives the truly horrific impact of HIV and AIDS on both gay and heterosexual communities in the 80s and 90s. With 75 million people directly affected around the globe, including 35 million deaths, God’s Other Children captures the essence and relevance of World AIDS Day; walking in Scott's shoes, the reader lives the pain and tears of too many premature goodbyes caused by a terrifying and merciless killer disease. Finding himself at the forefront of the response to the crisis, he recalls the period as “a conveyor belt of death and dying"; acknowledges HIV as a virus of equal opportunity; and sees the pain it causes as human, not gay, straight, black, or white. Setting out the national and international statistics, he further states: “Every day is World AIDS Day; there are real people behind the horrendous numbers.” The various accounts of named affected men, women, and children make tearful, heartbreaking reading, especially when AIDS comes home...

Emotionally scarred by the “AIDS war years”, Scott's subsequent journey into gay fatherhood delivers its own challenges, and compounded by an avalanche of deaths, he begins to play Russian roulette with his life. But will his Christian faith be enough to rescue him, especially when he begins to question "blind religion" and "inhumane Bible scripture."

God's Other Children: A London Memoir includes scores of previously unpublished London-shot photos, which add extra vibrancy to an already thumping read, including those of the historic six thousand-person strong Reach Out & Touch UK AIDS Vigil, and liaisons with legendary ladies of song, such as Whitney Houston, Dionne Warwick, and Gloria Gaynor.