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A review by stevienlcf
Not My Father's Son by Alan Cumming
3.0
Cumming makes clear that he does not intend to write a “my fabulous celebrity life” book and, with the exception of a funny bit about a spitting Patti Smith and Mary J. Bilge at a charity auction in Cannes, he sticks to his word. In 2010, Cumming is on the television show “Who Do You Think You Are?” and learns that his maternal grandfather, Tommy Darling, was a “fearless daredevil of war” who was severely wounded in one of the most frightening engagements of WWII and then had a major psychiatric episode that was white-washed because of the stigma attached to mental illness. Tommy took up a post in Malaya and died, at 35 years of age, of a gun shot wound. The mystery of why Tommy never rejoined his family is the subject of Cumming's televised quest. At that time that this story was unfolding on camera, the man whom Cummings believed was his father claimed that Cumming’s was not his biological son.
Cummings toggles back and forth between then and now. He depicts a philanderer father who was the head forester of a country estate on the east coast of Scotland. A seemingly idyllic childhood on thousands of acres of woodland was marred by his father’s physical and emotional abuse and constant humiliation. Neither Alan nor his older brother could recollect happy times as a family. Cumming recites harrowing descriptions of the atmospheric changes that preceded his father’s mood plunge into “irrationality, rage, and ultimately violence.” At 45, he tries to explain why the man from whom he had been estranged for almost two decades tormented him.
Readers seeking a celebrity "tell-all" will be disappointed, but Cumming pens a captivating tale about surviving childhood abuse.
Cummings toggles back and forth between then and now. He depicts a philanderer father who was the head forester of a country estate on the east coast of Scotland. A seemingly idyllic childhood on thousands of acres of woodland was marred by his father’s physical and emotional abuse and constant humiliation. Neither Alan nor his older brother could recollect happy times as a family. Cumming recites harrowing descriptions of the atmospheric changes that preceded his father’s mood plunge into “irrationality, rage, and ultimately violence.” At 45, he tries to explain why the man from whom he had been estranged for almost two decades tormented him.
Readers seeking a celebrity "tell-all" will be disappointed, but Cumming pens a captivating tale about surviving childhood abuse.