Young writer found vocation in family history project

Carlton writer and Triple R presenter Jonathan Butler, who has published a true crime family history, is appearing in two events at the Melbourne Writers Festival next month.

From an early age Jonathan Butler was enchanted by a photo hanging in his mother’s bedroom.

In it his grandmother, Winifred, and her cousin, Warwick, as kids, were posing in dress ups – she in baggy pants and a coat, he in a hat, heels and dress.

The spectacle both excited and reassured the young Jonathan, who had tried on his sisters’ dresses more than once and sensed he was gay but had found little recognition of that possibility in the world around him.

“Growing up in the ‘90s you just didn’t see it,” he said. “I didn't see it in the news on TV; no-one talked about it.”

“If there was ever a slight glimmer of it, it was shut down and spoken about badly. “

“So just in that vacuum of anything, I think this photo was like, 'holy crap!'"

But his “ancestor” Warwick, who was then a young serviceman, had been murdered in Townsville in 1944, and the mystery around the crime had never been solved.

From the age of 16 Jonathan and his mum started investigating the story.

“As soon as they launched Trove – the online newspaper resource, and ancestry. com, Mum and I were sort of on it,” he told Inner City News.

“We were doing the sleuthing to try and find out what happened, because there was a family rumour that Warwick was gay and I was very interested in finding out if his death was a result of his sexuality.”

“I basically didn’t stop until I was 27.”

During that decade of research and the four years of writing that followed it Jonathan found out “some pretty amazing stuff”, “worked through” issues around sexuality with his mum, came out as a gay man, taught himself research skills and produced a book that straddles the genres of true crime and Australian history, family history and queer history.

He also found his calling as “an enthusiast” and writer of queer history and forged strong links with the community involved with the Australian Queer Archives at the Pride Centre in St Kilda.

Since The Boy in the Dress was released in 2022 Jonathan has regularly run family history workshops for writers.

“I was lucky enough to be invited to do that this year for the Melbourne Writers Festival,” the 35-year-old said.

Unfortunately, the May 6 workshop has already sold out.

A second event he is part of, on May 9, is a “light-hearted panel chat” with his Triple R Queer View Mirror co-host Sam Elkin, as well as comedian and commentator Aurelia Sinclair and Fiona Wright, the author of “sharply satirical new novel” Kill Your Boomers.

Likely to be on the agenda, along with intergenerational inequality, are Sydney versus Melbourne tensions, property lust and the decline of "the Great Australian Dream".

As with the radio show, the idea was “to kind of bring people together and just have a chat about art and queerness and different ideas,” Jonathan said.

“I'm really looking forward to it. It should be fun.”

For more information on Melbourne Writers Festival events visit: mwf.com.au

The Boy in the Dress is published by Affirm Press. •