Book review: Jonathan Joly on surviving cruelties of life in an unreal world of his own creation

The style is simple and friendly with a definite lack of filters and a good dose of self-revelation

Jonathan Joly. Picture: Jeff Spicer/Getty Images

What a weirdo! These words, directed at Jonathan Joly since his earliest years, were designed both to diminish him and to set him apart from the ‘normal’ world.

In All My Friends are Invisible Joly retaliates by explaining how, even aged three, he was able to protect himself from derision by a defensive creation: an unreal world. This place is Domdie and its first and greatest inhabitant is Giselle. In Joly’s psyche, Jonathan and Giselle are one person in two physicalities, and in Domdie they are able to gambol and play, far from the criticisms and cruelties of others.

In writing this book, Joly hopes to reach out to all those who, like him, have relied on invisible friends for emotional support. For those who are bemused by such a concept, Joly hopes to bring enlightenment so that they may understand, and maybe even envy, people who have a Domdie and/or a tribe of Giselles.

Joly is known by his thousands of followers as a scrummy daddy married to a yummy mummy. He and his spouse, Anna Saccone, publicise selected aspects of their lives on YouTube, TikTok, and Instagram. Millions of followers can see them going about their daily activities.

As parents of four children, they have their challenges but on the whole things seem to be going very well for them and, if it is possible to pun a bit on Anna’s name, their offer is somewhat saccharine.

It is interesting, therefore, to discover a warts and all memoir of Joly’s childhood, one which includes a catalogue of traumas, some of which have travelled in his subconscious all the way into adulthood.

All My Friends are Invisible: a Memoir by Jonathan Joly

Born in 1980 in Terenure, Dublin, Joly was brought up by a mother with ambitions for social climbing — the ascent to be undertaken by her children. There was a lack of overt affection in the house but aged three Joly joined a class called low babies at the local Presentation Convent. Here he experienced happiness and joy in the company of his friends Ciara, Grace, Jemma, and Louise, all of them girls and all of them pledged to wed him.

At this stage Giselle is happy too, willing to share Joly with his other girlfriends but always confident in her position of primacy: after all she gets to go home with him and sleep in the same bed, alongside Lambsy and Rabbit.

Reading All My Friends are Invisible it is hard to remember that it is written by a man. The style is simple and friendly with a definite lack of filters between private and public, and a good dose of self-revelation. One should not gender everything these days, but the book feels as if it were the confidences of a woman.

Therefore, it does not come as a shock to read that Joly feels he was born into the wrong body. His desire to wear skirts and dresses did not go down well at home or at his conservative GAA-promoting school, so the only early outlet for his propensity was at Halloween when he could portray himself as a witch.

Joly has struggled with his identity throughout his life and it is admirable that he is communicating these experiences in a carefully curated offer. People who may have enjoyed the presentation of him as an ordinary husband and father will be fascinated to see this aspect of his personality, one that was repressed for much of his life but has become visible to all.

• All My Friends are Invisible: A Memoir by  Jonathan Joly
• Quercus, €15.99