A review by christinel
My Father, the Pornographer by Chris Offutt

3.0

Chris Offutt's father was a prolific writer of pulp porn novels. After his father died, Offutt took an inventory, and tried to reflect back on their difficult father-son relationship and his father's generally difficult personality. Though well-written, this story is filled with pain and doesn't really have a resolution. Chris Offutt does at least realize that there is nothing he could have done to change anything, but ultimately his father was driven towards sex and violent iconography in a way that caused suffering to both himself and those he loved. There is some pretty graphic content in here, though Chris Offutt is trying hard to be straightforward and not sensational about it.