From Illiteracy To Published Author
- Leonard Ottone was an illiterate drug-addict, convicted of armed robbery who taught himself to read and write in prison, then wrote an amazing memoir
Institutionalised from the age of fourteen - from juvenile detention to prison and eventually rehab - Leonard Ottone’s memoir, Coming Clean provides a raw and brutal insight into Melbourne’s criminal underworld, life-long heroin addiction and the long road to redemption.
“I found myself back in the same prison cell three years later. Lying on my bunk I saw the words scratched into the wall ‘Leonard was here, 1979.’ There it was, written in stone, living proof that I was repeating my mistakes. Living my nightmare over and over.”
Written in his own unique, colloquial style, Coming Clean tells it like it is. At times heartbreaking, other times anger inducing - seeing young people being criminalised for behaviours which are clearly indications of deeper problems, will always rile me. But ultimately this book is inspiring, a very honest depiction of the long, hard road to recovery and self-acceptance. From the moment I picked it up, I could not put it down.
The most incredible part of this story for me, was that for a long time, Leonard hid the fact that he couldn’t read or write. Yet here he is today, a published author with pages and pages of a second book in progress. How did this happen? As someone who has spent many years studying the craft of writing, teaching writing and am only now completing my own book-length manuscript, I was intrigued. I spoke to him on a frosty morning in Melbourne’s West, at his organisation, The Vicdor Living Centre.
How does one go from being illiterate to being a published author? And hiding the fact that you couldn’t read or write for so long?
‘Hiding the fact that I couldn’t read or write into adult life makes sense if you understand the journey I’ve had so far. I hid a lot of things about myself. Reading and writing was just something that added to all the other things. I didn’t want to be known as just a criminal or just a drug addict - and a dumb one at that. That was my mentality. I just found myself hiding and pretending to be who people wanted me to be for quite a long time. When I look back, I can see that when I hung around with shoplifters, I shoplifted. When I hung around with burglars, I burgled. When I hung around with drug users, I used drugs. Then I did the armed robberies. And when I got into recovery, I started hanging around with people in recovery who had other parts to their story, and a lot of them wanted to get their life back, a life that they never really had. Education was a big part of that for me, because I realised I could barely speak. Every swear word I swore, wasn’t a swear word to be rude it was a swear word to join the other words together to make a little bit of a sentence. And it just occurred to me that I should go back to school and get some education.’
Hmmm, that’s interesting. Beware the company you keep. There’s a saying, that if you hang around with four criminals, you’ll become the fifth criminal. If you hang around with four billionaires you’ll become the fifth billionaire. Maybe I should hang around with more published authors.
What was the process of then, of learning to read and write? That must have been really hard?
‘I started to read in prison, using novels that were easy to read. Some of them I read and I couldn’t join the other words together so I actually missed big chunks of what was being said, but to me it was okay, I used my imagination. My reading skills improved absolutely, heaps through that process. Reading skills helped me to write letters - and those letters got longer and longer. And then when I got a reply to a letter I could respond and try to expand on what I was saying. Before I knew it I was writing pages of letters. Reading must have helped me because I didn’t know how to express myself in writing, but reading gave me a context as to how to say things. And so I’d try really hard to write what I was trying to covey to people in my letters.’
And now a book? How did that happen?
‘I never thought I’d one day write a book. It was just a dream. People kept saying, ‘you should write a book, you should write a book, you should write a book.’ But it never occurred to me what they meant by that. I thought it was just because I’d been to prison and I’d been a drug addict and now I was in recovery and that should be conveyed to other people. But I didn’t know what they were saying by that. I just thought sure, 'ex jailbird come good’. I didn’t know that they thought I had a special story.’
So what was the motivation then to write it?
‘The main reason I wrote my story was for my two eldest daughters who were caught in the cross-fire more than anyone throughout my whole life. I set out to write this book for them. I had a mentor Vicky Vidor and we often discussed me writing a book. She knew I didn’t know how to go about that and she offered to help me publish my story. She organised for a ghost writer to interview me and write it. But it didn’t work that way, it just sounded too clinical, it didn’t sound like me. The ghostwriter asked me if I had anything I’d written myself. I told her I had all my stuff from my first rehab - Odyssey House, and all my stuff from NA. She said, can you send it to me? I told her she wouldn’t be able to read it, that I didn’t know where the commas were supposed to go and she said just send me something and we’ll see how we go.’
I admire your confidence. Most people don’t realise they’ve got a story worth telling, let alone knowing where to start.
‘I’d been telling my story for a long time. That’s part of the recovery journey, sharing your story over and over in different groups. And writing it out for a range of recovery-related reasons. So I was able to send her all I had. To my surprise she got back to me straight away and said, ‘Leonard this is fucking gold. Let’s do it this way.’ So she got me to write it, she said just write - hunks of your life, five years at a time. Then she edited it, cleaned it up. It would have been a totally different book if someone else had have written it.’
I like the ‘five years at a time’ advice. I do something similar with my students, getting them to map out the major turning points in their life, just getting down little snapshots they can expand upon later, growing the story from the inside out. The snapshots become scenes and then the scenes can become chapters.
The big question all budding writers want to know from a published author is what was your process? As an unpublished book author I have faced all the challenges you can think of, in the way of completing a full length manuscript; procrastination; facing the blank page; no time to write; this sounds like shit; no-one will want to read this etc. etc. In other words, what are the eleven secret herbs and spices needed to get a book written?
‘I was lucky to have access to a farm in Wallen and so I just sat in the sauna with my iPad and wrote it with one finger, one letter at a time. I just kept writing and writing and writing. It took about two years on and off.’
What I take from that is that you had the right environment, you carved out writing time, put words on the page and just kept going - very practical advice, it’s not rocket science yet somehow we overthink it. Was there anything you learned through writing a memoir?
'It was an amazing process. I learned a lot about myself. I learned that I’d lived a lot of lives in a life - I had my life growing up at home, I had my life in school, I had my life in Juvenile Justice, I had the abuse that was inflicted upon me, I had the abuse that I inflicted upon others. There was so much to it that I was quite amazed that I’d survived.
Before writing the book I didn’t feel much for myself at all. I was ashamed, I was remorseful, I was guilty and I didn’t know how I was going to portray that. I didn’t feel good about myself. I was always on show, I was always exposed as a fraud, I was always talked down to in courts, questioned in police stations, assessed by psychologists and psychiatrists - everyone was telling me what was wrong with me but no-one suggested what I might do to help myself.
Now I’m coming to a place where I’m meeting the guy I always hid from the world. I’ve realised he was always there watching from the sidelines. I was amazed at some of the things I did to survive, things I did to feed my addiction and some of the things I did to hide in general. I went to great lengths to hide the embarrassment that I thought I was. Being told by your dad that you’re never going to amount to anything, always being compared to other brothers and sisters, not being able to read and write and hiding that about myself. It was this that I was hiding. I actually believed the bullshit that I heard. It became a self-fulfilling prophecy. They told me this was going to happen, and I lived accordingly. They told me I was a criminal and then I acted accordingly. When I was twelve or thirteen I went to a psychic and she wouldn’t let me in the house. She told me I was too dark. That stayed with me for years. I thought she was going to help me.’
They sound like really important realisations. In fact it wouldn’t matter if someone went through that process and didn’t publish their story. That self awareness and compassion for oneself are huge gains. I use similar techniques with my students, getting them to write about themselves in the 3rd or 2nd person, which allows them to take a more objective view. But so important that you have this book to share with others, raise awareness around juvenile detention, criminal justice, addiction, kids falling through the cracks, the list goes on.
'It wasn’t until the book launch that I realised exactly what I’d done and what this book could do for me as a person, and for others. I had no idea what was going to come of it. Hearing someone say, ‘you’re an author now,’ still blows me away. But I am feeling more like a writer now, whatever that feels like. I’ve been blown away by the reaction to it, the response, and where the book’s ended up, some of the messages I’ve received from people I’ve never met, how they came to fall upon the book. And the reviews have been pretty much the same.’
What have been the most striking reactions you’ve had?
‘The most incredible feedback has been from my children. My son rang me in the middle of the night crying. He was blown away. He had no idea what I’d been through. He went on to tell me how lucky and grateful he felt to have the childhood he had with a guy he just read about that he did not know anything about. And then he went on to tell me how proud he was of me.’
So by the looks of things, you are not going to be a one-hit-wonder.
‘So it seems. This second book I’m writing, has made me realise that the first book was only a draft. There’s things that have happened and that I’ve done, that I’m now okay to talk about that weren’t in that first book. I censored myself heaps in the first book. I consciously tried to take responsibility, I consciously tried really hard not to blame other people and that turned out to be such a good process. It helped me see how much I had wrong as in my perspectives on things. So I was curious to see what else I might be wrong about. It was similar to the work I do with clients. As part of my role as a facilitator in a 12-step rehab, every time we get to steps eight or nine which is to make amends for past harms done to others, I always get people to write to the person they’ve harmed or that’s harmed them the most. I explain that they’ve got to write the letter without blame and take full responsibility, ending it with I love you and I’m sorry and can you please help me. And sometimes people have to rewrite the letter up to nine times, to get rid of all the blame. I won’t let the letters pass until I see that that is there. The letter isn’t meant to be passed on to anyone, it is meant for people to take full responsibility for what happened rather than excuses and blame.’
That’s a really powerful writing exercise for anyone. Writing letters to significant others that you don’t need to send. A memoirist’s goal, I believe is to expose the truth and confess to it all. But what we find is it’s a process of discovery. I might begin by thinking I was an absolute drop-kick in a certain situation, but discover through writing about it that no, I was set up to fail, or that my behaviour was actually a cry for help no-one picked up on. Who said writing wasn’t therapy!
So since becoming a ‘writer’ do you now read like a writer? I sometimes lament the days when I could pick up a novel and just read it for enjoyment. Now, I’m reading and analysing the writing craft at the same time - thinking ‘how did they do that?’
Yes, absolutely. When I’m reading like a writer, I’m trying to read like I’m carrying a story to the majority. For example I’m currently reading a book called The Courage To Be Happy. It’s written like a conversation between a philosopher and a teacher where the teacher’s questioning a lot of the philosophers views, and the philosopher’s actually changing the teacher’s mindset so subtly which I noticed I picked up, quite a few times as I went along. I didn’t believe what the philosopher was saying until he explained it in a concrete way. Most of it’s theory, most of it’s just words, and I needed to see what he was saying in a practical way, applied to my life. That’s what I mean by reading as a writer, I feel I could write a book like that.
Why do you think memoirs are important?
I think memoirs are important but it depends on who’s telling them and why they’re telling them. I think memoirs are a bit like looking through someone’s old photo album - each photo tells a story. I like memoirs that are about the young kid that was totally lost, trying to find his way in all the wrong places. What I take from those is to never give up and that you will find yourself in some amazing places. The memoir I’ve just finished, The Prettiest Horse in The Glue Factory by Cory White, is exactly that kind of story and I could really relate to it. His father was in and out of prison, he lost his mother to a heroin overdose, he was in and out of foster homes, got into drugs and self destruction and found it so hard to feel a sense of belonging. He wanted to give up so many times but he just kept going and found his purpose in comedy. I found my purpose in helping people.
Joseph Campbell, author of The Hero With A Thousand Faces, said that the ultimate reward for the ‘hero’, their true holy grail is to be in service of others, to give back, to show others the way. Was helping people something you always wanted to do?
'I would never have set out to do the work I’m doing, helping people was never part of my plan. But it was the only thing that I had, because I didn’t want to be a labourer for the rest of my life. I had no other skills. And other people noticed I was good at it, long before I did. I often say to people I have become my mum. Which is quite funny when you think about it - a convicted, drug addicted, armed robber turns into his mother. She had ten children, thirty-eight grandkids, twenty-two great grandkids and she looked after everyone unconditionally, like a matriach. She was amazing. For me, I started off looking after my wider community, people on the streets etc. and now I’m looking after my inner circle. My family are convinced now that I’ve become like my mum - family members I’ve struggled with that I’m not giving up on, reconnecting with others, particularly those in the family struggling with addiction who want to get clean now, are coming to me. The book has really helped with that relationship building. Those who’ve read it absolutely loved it and are really proud of me, others who are illiterate - not as bad as I was - are still really proud I’ve written a book. But there’s only one or two people who really really understand what this story is about and why I do what I do - and they refer people to me all the time.
Are there other books you’d like to write?
I’d love to write a story on my work and how I got into the field. I’ve worked on the streets from as early as I can remember in my journey to get clean, as far back as 1989. Like getting my first job in the sector when I was eleven months clean, I had no idea what the fuck we were supposed to be doing as a drug and alcohol peer worker. I found myself having to be a welfare worker, a social worker, a house supervisor, a house coordinator. These days you go to study, you study first and then you have the exam. But with lived experience, as in life, there is no study and life’s the exam. I was working in rooming houses, and at a place called The Brosnan Centre - for young kids getting out of prison - that kind of work became my forte. People just saw what I was doing with these kids that no-one else could talk to. I just thought about what I needed back then, what I didn’t get, and I proceeded to give it to these kids. Then I got funding to set up my own dual diagnosis program but with drug and alcohol for people getting of prison. Overnight I went from being ‘the shithead’ to ‘how great people thought I was’. I couldn’t believe it. People would just say to me, I just want to thank you Leonard, you saved my life. I didn’t even know what I’d done, to help them like that. But apparently I had an impact on someone to such a degree that they turned their life around. Ironically, I think it was something I developed because of my own life. Back in the day when I was a criminal and a drug addict, people would be warned to stay away from me. Now I’m being referred people to connect with me. I often laugh about that when I’m celebrating a birthday - I think, to all you muthafuckers who didn’t think I was going to make it, well fuck you.’
If you would like to buy Leonard’s book, it’s available on his website: leonardottone.com
And if you’d like to watch Leonard speaking about his journey then please watch the short film below, made about his life.
So often we think of high achievers as those who have accumulated huge amounts of wealth, or acquired high status in formal professions. But Leonard's journey is so much more remarkable, his achievements so much greater, and ultimately of much more value to society! He reminds me of Tony Birch - another serious dude who changed his life via education and self awareness. Inspiring.