Not My Father's Son Pdf

ISBN: B00MOUZ8H4
Title: Not My Father's Son Pdf A Memoir

Audie Award, Autobiography/Memoir, 2015

Dark, painful memories can be like a cage. Or, in the case of Alan Cumming, they can be packed away in a box, stuck in the attic to be forgotten. Until one day the box explodes and all the memories flood back in horrible detail. Alan Cumming grew up in the grip of a man who held his family hostage, someone who meted out violence with a frightening ease, who waged a silent war with himself that sometimes spilled over onto everyone around him. That man was Alex Cumming, Alan's father.

When television producers approached Alan to appear on a popular celebrity genealogy show in 2010, he enthusiastically agreed. He hoped to solve a mystery that had long cast a shadow over his family. His maternal grandfather, Tommy Darling, had disappeared into the Far East after WWII. Alan's mother knew very little about him - he had been a courier, carrying information between battalions on his motorbike. The last time she saw her father, Alan's mother was eight years old. When she was 13, the family was informed that he had died by his own hand, an accidental shooting.

But this was not the only mystery laid before Alan's feet. His father, whom Alan had not seen or spoken to for more than a decade, reconnected just before filming for Who Do You Think You Are? began. He had a secret he had to share, one that would shock his son to his very core and set into motion a journey that would change Alan's life forever.

With ribald humor, wit, and incredible insight, Alan seamlessly moves back and forth in time, integrating stories from his childhood in Scotland and his experiences today as the celebrated actor of film, television, and stage. At times suspenseful, at times deeply moving, but always incredibly brave and honest, Not My Father's Son is a powerful story of embracing the best aspects of the past and triumphantly pushing the darkness aside.

A Great Read Very interesting as it covers most of Alan's life. Not just the good stuff but the sad and bad stuff too. Really makes you think. All if the crap Alan had to go through and he still is able to make great lemonade! I give it a five because I read this a while back and yet Alan and his life story keeps popping up in my mind. A really great actor too!Wonderful I have liked Alan Cummings since I saw him in Spy Kids years ago. He has a innocence and sweetness that can't be faked. His take on the scarecrow in Tin Man was funny and lovely and sad.I was interested to read more about what had made this extraordinary man.His memoir is every bit as wonderful as he is. It is innocent and still too wise. It is sad and lovely. Heartbreaking violence towards a child is slipped in next to celebrity memories. His wondering about where he could come from is written with longing and the same enthusiasm with which he distances himself from the father he knows is part of his past.But even as we explore the answers to his mysteries we see what Alan does not. He is his fathers son in absolute negative. Where his father looks over a small child to find fault, Cumming writes about his father with grace. Perhaps, he posits, there were good and happy times with his father that he and his brother were just too traumatized to remember. Where his father rages, Cummings is gentle and wry. Alan looks deeply and he sees.Cummings is a lovely writer. Each vignette hands the reader one small part of him. It is up to the reader to put them together. Along the way we are treated to thoughts on what Shakespeare would be doing if he were alive today, the Eurovision Song contest, and the story of his blue sweater vest. His fathers relentless cruelty never diminishes but Alan grows far beyond it.He makes it beautifulbut I like Alan Cumming Difficult to say you "like" something that is so violent and brutal, but I like Alan Cumming, so I read his book. I don't understand how he ever could have had a kind thought, or word, about his vicious father, no matter his mental condition but everyone's different. This is a tough book to read. His father was a petty, controlling, violent, mentally, physically abusive and hateful man who sucked the joy out of the lives of everyone around him. He terrorized his family. I imagine the only reason no one tried to stab him to death, over dinner, was because he was stronger than they were. Still, his mother stayed and allowed her children to tortured. No one knows why people do what they do, times and place bring out different responses to events. Only she knows why she stayed. Alan Cumming loved his maternal grandmother and the love she had for him was a bright spot in his otherwise tormented life and probably helped him survive. Much of the book is taken up with the reality show about finding who you are. During the filming he found out about his maternal grandfather and that helped him in many ways. Mr. Cumming loves his work, loves his husband and is close to his older brother and his mother. He seems happy and he appears to have overcome much of the damage his father did. Unfortunately, whathappened to AlanCummings is happening right now, to children everywhere. Children are tortured, beaten and abused everyday. The book is honest and heartfelt.

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