Beautiful Scars

Steeltown Secrets, Mohawk Skywalkers and the Road Home

By: Tom Wilson

Narrated by: Tom Wilson

"I'm scared and scarred but I’ve survived"

Tom Wilson was raised in the rough-and-tumble world of Hamilton—Steeltown— in the company of World War II vets, factory workers, fall-guy wrestlers and the deeply guarded secrets kept by his parents, Bunny and George. For decades Tom carved out a life for himself in shadows. He built an international music career and became a father, he battled demons and addiction, and he waited, hoping for the lies to cease and the truth to emerge. It would. And when it did, it would sweep up the St. Lawrence River to the Mohawk reserves of Quebec, on to the heights of the Manhattan skyline.
With a rare gift for storytelling and an astonishing story to tell, Tom writes with unflinching honesty and extraordinary compassion about his search for the truth. It's a story about scars, about the ones that hurt us, and the ones that make us who we are.

From Beautiful Scars:

Even as a kid my existence as the son of Bunny and George Wilson seemed far-fetched to me. When I went over it in my head, none of it added up. The other kids on East 36th Street in Hamilton used to tell me stories of their mothers being pregnant and their newborn siblings coming home from the hospital. Nobody ever talked about Bunny's and my return from the hospital. In my mind my birth was like the nativity, only with gnarly dogs and dirty snow and a chipped picket fence and old blind people with short tempers and dim lights, ashtrays full of Export Plain cigarette butts and bottles of rum.
Once, when I was about four, I asked Bunny, "How come I don't look anything like you and George? How come you are old and the other moms are young?"
"There are secrets I know about you that I’ll take to my grave," she responded. And that pretty well finished that. Bunny built up a wall to protect her secrets, and as a result I built a wall to protect myself.

Powerful real life story

Too often we think of the lives of performing artists in terms of the glamour, and the glitz and the beauty of it all. Tom story “Beautiful Scars” takes us beyond that glamour, beyond that glory, into the reality of the Canadian performing artist trying to make his way in the musical world and share it with us so many of the pitfalls, challenges, and heartbreak that is the cost of that world. More than that, it is the story of Canada. Our folk music industry, the reality of pursuing your passions, your creative gifts, and the unknowing. All of the experience as we try and meld those gifts into the Creator’s vision for us. I love listening to Tom read his own works through the entirety. I’ve had the great pleasure of meeting Tom at the launch of our recent Artist Against Racism (aarcharity.org) campaign in March in Toronto. He captured my interest intrigue then, and I love how he shared his story through the book in such an easy to hear, easy to understand language, peppered with the humor and the reality that all Canadians can appreciate. Loved it. “I have told my truth the way I remember it and everything else is bullshit “ words all of us can benefit from embracing. Loved it all!

Absolutely fantastic!!!

If Tom can sing anything like he can write, I am his new #1 fan! And as a narrator, no one but no one could have touched his performance! Simply put: amazing!

Outta his head!

It is surprisingly light on music and songwriting and centres on Tom's personal and family life.
And what a life.
Tom's unpretentious delivery make it an authentic tale of a life on the wrong side of the tracks in one of Canada's most unglamourous towns.
You will laugh and you will cry, and you will hear about lives in Canada that rarely get told. Disabled war vets. First Nations. The addicted.


Hopefully Tom will write a sequel with more road stories .

A Good Memoir

A solid read by a wonderful narrator of stories comprising his life so far. I recommend it.