MOON IN FULL
A Modern Day Coming-of-Age Story
by Marpheen Chann
Islandport Press. 256 pages, $18.95
MARPHEEN CHANN’S name may not be well-known outside of Maine, where Chann is a community organizer, a public speaker, and recently became Portland’s first Cambodian American elected official, as a member of that city’s charter commission. In his new memoir Moon in Full, he comes across as a tremendously likable, openly gay man who overcame all the odds.
Chann was born in California, in 1991, to a teenage mother who, with a few family members, had survived the genocidal Pol Pot regime in Cambodia, followed by years in a Thai refugee camp before being resettled in California. He and his younger sister were shuttled between informal foster care and life in a dysfunctional home in which father figures went from bad to worse. When he was eight years old, his grandmother found out about the large number of Cambodian immigrants living in Portland, Maine. He was asked to decide whether he wanted to accompany his mother and biological family, or stay with his beloved Cambodian godparents and their family in California. How does a child decide? Biology won out.
Despite a chaotic and sometimes violent family life, food insecurity, and issues of intergenerational trauma, Chann seems to have always had an outgoing personality, and he made friends easily. He did play around sexually with his young friends—both male and female—but he knew that his deepest connection was with another little boy. Images of baseball players on the cards he collected really got his attention, and he described finding particular players handsome, then kissing the cards.
When his family’s problems appeared on Maine’s Office of Child and Family Services’ radar, his youngest siblings were packed off to foster care. Eventually, it was Chann’s turn to be removed from his home. He doesn’t dwell on the unfortunate matches but highlights the love and attention he received from caring Mainers who were not in it for the money. With the good came the bad: in his case, the family that eventually adopted him out of foster case when he was twelve years old belonged to an evangelical, homophobic church in a small town located about a half hour’s drive from Portland. He worked hard to fit in, literally trying to “pray the gay away” and, with his talent for music, became heavily involved in the church’s youth music program. He was also enrolled in a private Christian school. Maine did not ban conversion therapy until 2019, and Chann lived in the very real fear that he might be sent away.
After high school, he decided to attend an out-of-state Christian college known for its music program. But there was no end of cute boys in his dorm, and he felt trapped and unable to deal with his feelings. Eventually he came out to an old friend from high school—a girl—who seemed entirely cool and not surprised in the least. But another old friend—a guy—to whom he came out, in turn outed him at their place of work (a supermarket). Chann feared that his adoptive parents would find out before he had the chance to break the news to them himself. While initially they seemed somewhat okay with this disclosure, assuring him that he was just confused, they soon displayed the emotions that he had expected. But his feelings about his adoptive parents were complicated. They had gone out of their way to adopt his siblings in order to unify the family, give them a stable home, and keep them all in touch with their biological mother.
Eventually, Chann took to Craigslist to search for dates. Finally, a kind soul alerted him to the existence of Portland’s prysm (Proud Rainbow Youth of Southern Maine) where he found a world of acceptance and community. He transferred to the local branch of the University of Maine and changed his major to political science, finally able to have a fairly typical, and thoroughly enjoyable, college experience. He must have paid close attention in class if the asides sprinkled through the book are any indication.
In a coda, Chann writes of reconnecting with many members of his extended biological family, but he could barely communicate with his mother. Her English remained shaky, and he’d lost virtually all the Khmer that he’d spoken in early childhood. The rest of his Cambodian family accepted his being gay to one degree or another, but his mother still assumed that he would have children and that she would help take care of them.
Martha E. Stone is the literary editor of this magazine.
