My Father and Myself (New York Review Books Classics)

Rating:
Summary: The Howling Fantods
Review: Ackerley, a subtle and unassuming writer, has lately been quietly adopted as a "gay" writer. The term seems to have had less meaning in Ackerley's time than in ours. "My Father and Myself" would perhaps have been, at the time it was written, a suspenseful tale; it is constructed almost as a mystery. The modern reader, alert to every faint whiff of suggested homosexuality, will have guessed the memoir's (un-)shattering conclusion well before he has reached the end. No matter: Ackerley could've written elegantly and compellingly about stock-car racing, or peeling paint; his material here--his father's past and his own youth--is of universal interest, and of particular interest to unhappy sons.

Rating:
Summary: Not as good as I'd heard.
Review: For years, I have heard about this book. After reading it, I am not that thrilled. I would suggest purchasing the JR Ackerly biography, as opposed to this. It's a bit sanitized for my taste.

Rating:
Summary: Ackerley at his finest
Review: The NYRB Classics series pretty much started out with a slew of reprints of the cult writer J.R. Ackerley, including his three memoirs (this, MY DOG TULIP and HINDOO HOLIDAY) and his one novel (WE THINK THE WORLD OF YOU). This, I would say, is easily his finest work. Ackerley's masterful reconstruction of his father's mysterious lovelife (comprising two unwed households and several unexplained longterm "friendships" with wealthy men) and his own conflicted sex life as a gay man in early twentieth-century London. Ackerley's tone always seems extremely honest, and while the narrative never comes to any absolute conclusions about Ackerley's father you're left convinced that these omissions and gaps are meaningful in and of themselves. This is as about a fine and interesting a memoir as I can imagine.