Hello Bookworms!,
April is
National Child Abuse Awareness Month and in this month, I want to bring you a
review of a book that will shed some light on what abused children go through.
So this year, I want to review Not My Father’s Son by Alan Cumming!
Summary
Alan
Cumming is a well-known celebrity, having played roles in GoldenEye, The Good
Wife, Caberet (on stage), hosting PBS’s Masterpiece Mystery. But before that,
he was a young boy growing up on Panmure Estate in Scotland, the son of head
Forestry worker Alex Cumming.
Alex
Cumming was an extremely harsh man who put both Alan and his brother Tom
through years of torment and abuse. This abuse has had lasting effects on both
boys even into adulthood.
When the
popular Genealogy show “Who Do You Think You Are?” asks Alan to be a guest, and
takes him on a journey to discover the truth behind his Maternal Grandfather
who went missing, and a tabloid ignites Alex Cumming’s rage again, Alan’s life
suddenly becomes very complicated as new revelations about himself and his
family come in waves.
Review
Alan uses
this book to brilliantly illustrate what it was like to grow up abused and to
live as an adult in the aftermath of the abuse. At first, the constant
switching between the past, the recent past, and the present seems haphazard,
but as one continues, it becomes clear that the book is arranged this way to
show how each experience is linked.
The use of
telling his own story and telling his grandfather’s story side by side is
brilliant. Alan highlights the similarities between the life experiences of
himself, his mother, his grandmother, his grandfather, his father, and his
brother to show patterns in life experiences of different people who all took
very different paths in their lives and how these similarities all meant
different things for each person.
This book
is brilliant look into what it is to be abused and to try to overcome the
effects of abuse from the mind of a person who ahas lived it. It is a great
book to read if you are looking to understand what kind of effect abuse has on
a child into their adulthood. I also love that Alan admits that he has had
therapy to help himself overcome the abuse and you can see the positive
application of the things Alan has learned in therapy in his daily life and in
moments of crisis throughout the book.
I applaud
Alan Cumming for being so honest because it sheds a lot of light on the plight
of abused children. If you are being abused, or know a child who is being
abused, say something. Silence hides violence and allows it to continue. It IS
your business and your responsibility to say something if you know a child is
facing abuse. Speak to the proper authorities. Call DFACS or CPS, the school
social worker, or the police and report what you know.
People saw
evidence that Alan was being abused, but no one did anything. Alan only escaped
when he became and independent man. He was more fortunate that the many who die
as a result of abuse every year.
If you know something, say something.
Until next time,
Lizzie <3
