Book Review
Title: The Blood On My Hands by Shannon O’Leary
Genre: Non-Fiction, Memoir
Rating: 3.5 Stars
So I didn’t know what to expect from this autobiography but it certainly wasn’t what I was expecting it to be. Shannon O’Leary is a known TV presenter in Australia but her childhood wasn’t a pleasant one, as it was one that was mentally and emotionally challenging at the best of time and horrific at worst. Even though the synopsis mentions murder among other things I genuinely wasn’t mentally prepared for the amount of downright disgusting things that happened to Shannon during her childhood. From the opening she discusses the relationships between her grandparents and her parents and none of them are particular healthy but her father’s family is toxic. They were strong Catholics and when Shannon’s mother found out she was pregnant with Michael as a teen, her father’s response was that owned her now, which threw me.
Shannon was the second child, followed by Jamie and Liam making her the only girl and from the day she was born things are going wrong in horrible ways. Patrick was already abusive before the children were born but the children coming made this abusive even worse because he felt they were competition for her mother’s attention. It becomes clear by the time that Shannon is four that her father is completely unhinged. She is sent to a Catholic school run by nuns where she is isolated more than ever because she doesn’t like to play with children her own age or girls, most likely because of her trauma. At home, their mother is being beaten black and blue most days, her father kills a number of the family pets and emotionally tortured his own children especially Shannon taking delight in making her cry.
This is taken to next level when her father ends up killing three people in front of Michael, Shannon and their mother leaving them suffering with PTSD without knowing about it. Shannon’s mother does ask for help several times but Patrick’s family believe she should just endure the abuse because she is Patrick’s wife and the police couldn’t care less. Being without a car and phone there is little her mother can do but she tries her best to protect the children. However, Shannon knows her mother is being drugged making their protection hard for her, so each find ways to hide around the property. It is during a trip to the hospital because of a really bad infection she contracted after her father attacked her where we learn that he has been raping Shannon for a while and the nurses see this and report it but nothing comes of it. This is nothing new for her father since we saw he raped her mother while she was in labour with one of her younger brothers.
At this point, not even halfway through, I was seriously concerned for Shannon’s life and the lives of her family. It seems her father is dealing with psychosis maybe a form of split personality disorder since Shannon clearly references different personalities like the baby and the games man. While we are aware that Shannon and her mother are frequent targets we don’t hear much about the boys during this time. Shannon has had to create a mental space she can retreat into when he father tortures her and despite telling a few nuns about it, no one does anything. Shannon is also being subjected to sexual assaults from her father on a nightly basis making her completely terrified to sleep and considering she is still so young at this point I was completely heartbroken for her having been through something similar in my own childhood.
Shannon is brutally honest about the things she endured in addition to the sexual abuse, she was beaten, degraded and had her fears used against her to the point she trained herself not to show any emotion even when being burned. As she grows older, her father’s abuse becomes even more unhinged as he kills numerous people in front of Shannon including two mental disabled teens who he was sleeping with at the time. One of which was her cousin Leah, who ended up pregnant before being sent for an abortion and then a church facility where she would presumably live out the remainder of her days. At several points, Shannon considers running away but can’t leave her mother and brothers to suffer at her father’s hand especially if she is free and wants them to leave together but it is difficult since her father seems to be everywhere at once.
Eventually, her mother reaches breaking points and moves them out of the house but the next two places they live are relatively close to her father’s home and he relentlessly stalks the father threatening violence and pleading for them to return. There are times where her mother is close to giving in but Shannon is the voice of reason driving her to be strong which she shouldn’t have to be at her age. Her father also kidnaps her a few times even raping her at one point, driving Shannon further into herself. Her mother has found a new man in Bill, but he is also an alcoholic but not abusive like her father although the one time he does hit Shannon it completely breaks something inside of her since Bill had been a safe space until that point protecting her from her father. By the early 70s most of the children are working in addition to their mother in order to move further away from their father and most have cut ties with him altogether and this is helped by the eventually divorce.
In the end all are able to free themselves from Patrick O’Leary but the emotional, mental and physical scars he has left on them will never leave. All members of the family show symptoms of PTSD from insomnia, night terrors and shaking as well as flashbacks, especially Shannon and her mother. However, when the call finally comes that her father has died, something is lifted from Shannon and she is able to breath properly for the first time in decade but he was never held accountable for his crimes since no bodies were ever found. Shannon does help people find some of the location where old knives turn up but nothing substantial enough for a conviction. The ending was the most heart-breaking because you are expecting her father to face justice especially after they escape and he never does, living a free man until he dies while his children have to live with what he did to them.
Buy it here:
Paperback/Hardcover: amazon.co.uk amazon.com
Kindle Edition: amazon.co.uk amazon.com
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