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Book Salon
My Father and Myself

  • This month we're reading My Father and Myself by J. R. Ackerley. Our faculty host is Terry Castle.

    " J.R. Ackerley's memoir, MY FATHER AND MYSELF, is at once a wonderfully scabrous look back at late-Victorian and Edwardian British middle-class family life; an exquisite comic lampoon on paternal (and filial) hypocrisy and impudence; and a revealing, honest, and often touching 'gay' autobiography. It is also gossipy and hilarious: a marvelous document in the annals of literary indiscretion."

    Terry Castle, Walter A. Haas Professor in the Humanities

About this quarter's book selection

J.R. Ackerley’s brilliant memoir, My Father and Myself, tells the story of the author’s search to uncover the true history of his father. A letter left by his father on his deathbed exposing a deep secret leads Ackerley to begin obsessing over the unknown details of his father’s covert second life.

Ackerley, a gay man, embarks on this quest in an attempt to learn more about himself and how he had come to be who he was. He was often at odds with his father, whose domineering attitude and occupation as a successful fruit merchant resulted in an often strained relationship. Only after his discovery of the illuminating letter did Ackerley earnestly seek to understand the man who so often had eluded him.

Artistically compelling yet based in reality, My Father and Myself was published after Ackerley’s own death in 1967.  Written in simple prose, it is guaranteed to be an enjoyable read.

The Stanford Book Salon [Seriously Unstuffy]