Alan Cumming - Not My Father's Son

Another one of the category "Popsugar" made me read this... But that's how to broaden your reading horizon... This time the prompt called for "A memoir that explores queerness".

Alan Cumming isn't an actor who I knew much about and I can't actively recall seeing him on screen although I saw several of the films he was in. His biography Not my Father's Son deals with his problematic relatitionship with his father and other aspects of his family history. The focus isn't actual on the aspect of queerness although him being different surely triggered the actions of his abusive father. In the cause of a TV show about the genealogy of celebrities Alan Cumming discovers a lot about the past of his maternal grandfather while also engaging in an active process to deal with the damage his father did to him and his brother in his childhood. He conveys his confusion and distress during this time but manages to come up stronger and more at peace with himself and his past at the end. He appears to be truthful, self-critical and witty throughout the events and although I wasn't totally fascinated with the story I stuck with it till the end and am happy that I did. 

 Alan Cumming, Not my Father's Son. Canongate 2014.