Tuesday, September 6, 2016

Wicked Boy; My Father, the Pornographer

I finished two books this weekend, neither of which was what I was expecting but they were both good. "Wicked Boy" by Kate Summerscale was about Robert Coombes, a thirteen year old boy who killed his mother back in 1895 while his father was away at sea. He and his younger brother, Nattie, lived with her corpse for 10 days in the heat of summer until the smell finally led neighbors to investigate. Robert was found guilty of his mother's murder but insane and sent to a mental hospital. He lived there for 17 years and was released in 1912. He moved to Australia and ended up serving with distinction during WWI. He returned to Australia and by all accounts led a quiet life, farming. He never married, but he did become a sort of guardian to a young neighbor boy whose stepfather beat him. I was expecting more of a true crime sort of aspect, which wasn't really there. It was still quite interesting and I enjoyed it.


Everything I read about Chris Offutt's book made it sound like he didn't know his father wrote pornography until after he died, so I was expecting more of a book about how Chris came to terms with learning such a big secret. However, it turns out he knew, he grew up knowing that his dad wrote porn. Andrew Offutt sounded like a highly unpleasant man: he was controlling and obnoxious, liked to drink and verbally abuse his four kids and his wife. He had legions of fans who loved his bondage porn, which Andrew turned out at a fantastic rate. It was all right, it wasn't as good as I'd hoped but it had interesting bits.

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