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Overview
Set in Columbus, Ohio, My Father’s Closet tells the story of how just before the war, McClintock’s parents fell in love and married, while overseas in Germany the man whom she believes became her father’s lover was concealing his Jewish and gay identities in order to escape to America. A set of her father’s journals, letters her parents sent to each other during the Second World War, and a mysterious painting all lead her toward the truth about her gay father. McClintock weaves a complex secret into the fabric of lives we truly care about. And in the process, she leads us out of her father’s closet.
This gripping memoir captures the longing children feel for a distant or hidden parent and taps into the complexity of human connection and abandonment. The characters are resilient and vibrant. The hidden lovers, the nosey neighbors, and surprise lovers all show up. In the end, this extraordinary family finds ways to connect and freedom to love. Anyone who grew up with a family secret will appreciate the dynamics afoot in this fast-paced and compelling story.
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9780814253960 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Ohio State University Press |
| Publication date: | 04/04/2017 |
| Edition description: | 1 |
| Pages: | 256 |
| Sales rank: | 1,167,649 |
| Product dimensions: | 6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 0.80(d) |
About the Author
Read an Excerpt
Winged Cupid
1967
At age fourteen, I am bothered by zits and mood swings. Searching through every bookshelf in the house for information about sex, I find an utterly useless and too-heavy-to-lift textbook by Alfred Kinsey and a collection of National Geographic magazines containing pictures but no instructions. So I ask Mom about falling in love, which seems like an acceptable topic that might lead her to tell me more about sex.
“I’m sure I must have told you this before,” she says flatly, reaching under the end table to the bottom shelf for visual aids—pulling out her 1938 North High School yearbook. Folded clippings from The Columbus Journal are stuck between the pages. Mom pats the spot next to her on the lime green couch that backs up to the picture window. A thin film of sheer draperies keeps curious neighbors from knowing too much about us. She offers her palm-out finger wiggle, the come-here gesture that I cherished as a child and have resisted since becoming a teenager. I’m reluctant to move closer to the lingering smell of smoke in her hair and on her clothing, even though she put the last butt out a few minutes ago. The pictures are the hook that draws me over to her.
Looking at her senior picture a long while, I unsuccessfully try to find my face inside hers. Her head is tilted leftward, and she looks over her shoulder at the camera, giving off a bit of sass. She has approachably friendly features that neither stand out nor offend.
“You’re so young, Mom,” I say.
She flips the book forward to my father’s senior picture, and I think that his baby-fine hair is like mine. I reach up and rake my fingers through my bangs the way men do in the movies when they try to catch a look from a group of girls walking by. I’ve never seen Dad do that, so I squint at his picture in case I missed something.“Not a hair out of place,” Mom says. “Not then, not ever.” She has a slightly disapproving tone to her voice.
“His glasses make him look smart,” I say, though he also looks slightly nerdy and naïve.
“He’s sweet looking, isn’t he?” she asks. “The smile is what got me.”
I stop my usual chatty banter, knowing that the less I say the more she will. She’s about to launch into the story of their romance. Telling it reminds her that while the smile reeled her in, she married him for love, for his inviting blue eyes, the resonant tone in his voice, and his fascination with her.
Thinking back on this day, the adult me wants to derail her story, to interrupt it by swapping my father for one of those other boys in the yearbook, to pick out Ben for her or Ralph, Roger, maybe Mike. I’d find a totally different guy to meet her at the top of the stairs at the high school the day she won the election and became membership recruiter for the Thespian Society, the job that led her directly into my father’s charms. If I could reach back in time and disrupt their story, I could save them those years of heartache.
But I can’t. Besides, I wouldn’t exist if it had gone differently.
So I’m content with the memory of sitting next to her looking at the yearbook, exploring young love’s innocence and trickery.
Table of Contents
Acknowledgments ix
Prologue xi
Winged Cupid
Chapter 1 Winged Cupid 3
Chapter 2 Grandma Wanted a Girl 13
Chapter 3 Courtship by Pie 17
Chapter 4 The Porch Swing 25
Chapter 5 Awestruck 31
Chapter 6 Hamburg, Germany 36
Chapter 7 The Radio Show 44
Chapter 8 The Lesson 51
Separated by War
Chapter 9 Pearl Harbor Day 65
Chapter 10 Farewell 70
Chapter 11 Boot Camp 74
Chapter 12 Engagement Letter 84
Chapter 13 Gathered Here 86
Early Years
Chapter 14 Groundbreaking 95
Chapter 15 Thanksgiving 103
Chapter 16 Mom's Little Ditties 108
Chapter 17 Independence Days 114
Chapter 18 No One Dives Deep 120
Chapter 19 The Columbs Gallery of Fine Arts 124
Chapter 20 Our New Basement 129
Chapter 21 An Accident Waiting to Happen 136
Forbidden Love
Chapter 22 The Faculty Club 145
Chapter 23 Student Protests 150
Chapter 24 The New York Gay Liberation March 155
Chapter 25 Stephanie 164
Chapter 26 No Going Back 168
Chapter 27 New York Underground 179
Chapter 28 The Pipes Might Freeze 187
Out of the Closet
Chapter 29 The Crash 195
Chapter 30 The AIDS Epidemic 200
Chapter 31 Last Days 205
Chapter 32 The Shiny Blue Casket 212
Chapter 33 Saying Goodbye 216
Chapter 34 The Wake 220
Chapter 35 Mom Comes Out at Last 224
Chapter 36 The Bust 229
Chapter 37 National Coming Out Day 234
Epilogue 242