“The central tragedy of childhood is never getting what you want,” (Easton).
Easton’s memoir explores their life growing up in the West as a Mormon, queer, Autistic individual. Following them as a child in the Mormon church and a student at an Anglican boys’ boarding school to be “reformed,” to mall bathrooms, rodeos, bathhouses, and Catholic churches, Easton’s book is an examination of want, desire, and the complex murkiness that comes when looking back.
I had to wait a bit to get this through Libby but Daddy Lessons was worth it. Easton is candid in their memoir about their childhood interest in developing relationships with older boys and men after their father left their family as a child and the confusion that came with that from the sexual repression they experienced at the hands of the Mormon church. Seen as “feral” as a teenager, Easton is then sent away to a reform school where they are sexually abused by a Dorm Master. There’s sex in a mall basement, a “seduction” of a Mormon missionary, and an overall intimate and honest exploration of desire throughout Easton’s life.
Easton’s memoir also explores the complication of want. Easton is very aware of their wants from a young age, whether it’s the relationships they imagine with older boys and men or the sexual experiences they’d like from these older men. It can be uncomfortable at times, knowing that this want can exist at a young age while also seeing how these older figures in power take advantage of Easton’s want inappropriately through power. It’s a discussion that doesn’t happen in many memoirs exploring similar subjects, but Easton does so with great introspection and care throughout.
Each chapter in Easton’s memoir is an essay, or lessons, about what Easton has learned from different interactions with the men or “daddies” they have come in contact with throughout their life. I particularly enjoyed Easton’s analysis of the relationship of men and masculinity in playwright and screenwriter Neil LaBute’s works, as well as a look into Lorelai James’ cowboy erotic with Easton’s own relationship with a cowboy. It’s a thoughtful and at times intense look at their past as Easton uses analysis and memory to understand themselves, their wants, and the people in power around them.
A blend of personal, erotic, and the academic, Easton’s memoir is a confrontation of understand want and power. Moving and honest, Daddy Lessons is sure to leave its mark on many readers.
Publication: October 24 2023
Publisher: Coach House Books
Pages: 160 (Libby)
Source: Library
Genre: Non-Fiction, Memoir, Queer
My Rating: ⛤⛤⛤⛤⛤
Summary:
Steacy Easton grew up Mormon, queer, and Autistic in the West. This book traces the people and spaces that made them who they are: the Mormon church, an Anglican boys’ boarding school where they were sent to be ‘reformed’ and where they were abused by a teacher, and then, later on, rodeos and bathhouses and mall bathrooms. The world Easton describes is one in which desire is complicated, where men – ‘daddies’ – can be loving and they can be abusive, and there isn’t always a clear distinction. Easton explores the essential texts of their sexuality, from Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick to Neil LaBute, Kip Moore to Lorelei James, and delves into their own encounters as they came of age. These daddy lessons are blunt about the pleasures of disobedience, slippery and difficult, reveling in the funk of memory and desire.
Sarah O'Connor 