My Father And Myself

Ackerley, J.R.

Introduced by WH Auden
JR Ackerley's father was the Banana King, a successful importer of fruit and a bluff, hearty fellow - qualities little appreciated by his refined and literary son. On his death, however, he left a letter revealing that his life of respectable prosperity was a facade. This began for Ackerley an ongoing quest to comprehend a father who remained always just out of reach.
Published after its author's own death, My Father and Myself was immediately recognized as a classic account of the relationship between parent and child. It has since become celebrated as a path-breakingly honest and rendering of a gay man's life and desires. In measured and unflinching prose, this memoir confronts the problems and paradoxes of family life and individual identity, hindsight and insight, sex and love.

ISBN: 9780940322127

280 pages