Roam: A Search for Happiness Juno Roche

Description

Juno Roche was born into a working-class family in London in the sixties, who dabbled in minor criminality. For their father, violence & love lived together, for their mother addiction was the only way to survive. School was a respite, but shortly after beginning their university course Juno was diagnosed with HIV, then a death sentence. Juno is a survivor; they outlived their diagnosis, got a degree & became an artist. But however hard you try to take the kid out of the family, some scars go too deep; trying to run from AIDS & their childhood threw Juno into dark years of serious drug addiction, addiction often financed by sex work. Running from home eventually took Juno across the sea to a tiny village in Spain, surrounded by mountains. Only once they found a quiet little house with an olive tree in the garden did Juno start to wonder if they had run too far, & whether they have really been searching for a family all along.