{"product_id":"my-father-and-myself-by-j-r-ackerley","title":"'My Father and Myself' by J. R. Ackerley","description":"\u003ch4\u003e\n\u003cspan\u003eJ. R. Ackerley’s \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cem\u003e\u003cspan\u003eMy Father and Myself \u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/em\u003e\u003cspan\u003eis a story of a\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan\u003e son reconstructing a father he never fully knew. \u003c\/span\u003e\n\u003c\/h4\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cspan\u003ePublished posthumously, it begins with Ackerley’s discovery that his respectable businessman father had kept an entire second domestic life largely hidden, including a long-term partner and children unknown to much of the family.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cspan\u003eBut the book is not really a family scandal memoir, at least not in the cheap sense. Ackerley uses his father as a way into his own life: secrecy, sexuality, class, inheritance, shame, desire, self-invention. Each fact about the father alters the son’s understanding of himself. The father becomes less a solved mystery than a mirror with cracks in it.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cspan\u003eThe result is one of those memoirs where biography becomes philosophy: how much of another person can ever be known, what families choose not to say, and how much of identity is built around those absences.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eEdition \/ Condition: New York Review Books, New York, 1999. Paperback. Introduction by W. H. Auden. Light shelf wear only; internally clean and unmarked, binding firm. Very good condition.\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"bower studio","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":50566604718163,"sku":null,"price":16.0,"currency_code":"AUD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0689\/0268\/2707\/files\/womenintranslation-2026-09-28T174958.535.png?v=1790581857","url":"https:\/\/bowerbooks.com\/products\/my-father-and-myself-by-j-r-ackerley","provider":"bower books","version":"1.0","type":"link"}