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Feb
26
Book Review: A Common Pornography by Kevin Sampsell
2010 at 10am Posted by Rebecca Joines Schinsky
Published January 2010 by HarperCollins
Bet I’m gonna get some interesting new followers and fun spam comments with the word “pornography” in the title of my post, but you know what? It will be totally worth it for the opportunity to talk about this incredibly unique, impossible-to-put-down book. (That’s my new workaround for “unputdownable,” which I know many of you hate. What do you think?)
Anyway, let’s talk about A Common Pornography because it really is fascinating. After Kevin Sampsell’s father died suddenly of a brain aneurysm in 2008, he returned to the small town in Washington state where he grew up, and as he revisited memories from his childhood, viewing them through the new lens of adulthood and realizing that his life was not nearly as normal as he once thought, his mother revealed new information about his family’s history—including his father’s molestation of his half-sister—that enabled him to put the pieces together in a way he never had before. What resulted from this reflection is the “memory experiment” that forms A Common Pornography.
Presented in short vignettes—most pieces in the book are just a few pages—that seem to be a free association of memories about childhood, adolescence, family dysfunction, sexual experiences, and much more, A Common Pornography tells the story of Sampsell’s life through a series of written snapshots. By giving readers insight into the most salient, formative moments of his life—and many mundane ones as well—Sampsell pieces together an autobiography that doesn’t mess around with small talk but instead goes right to the heart of who and how he is and why that is so.
The make-up of Sampsell’s family is unusual, consisting of several half-siblings–one of whom is black— from his mother’s two previous marriages, and his relationship with his half-siblings and his father is complicated to say the least. The snapshot vignettes exploring these relationships are remarkably weighty, particularly for such short pieces, and they indicate that what Sampsell has done here goes beyond having a way with words. These pieces pack a strong emotional punch, and Sampsell takes us with him as he forms new understandings of his family following his mother’s revelations.
In balance to these darker pieces, Sampsell tells us about his adolescent porn collection (you were waiting for that, weren’t you?), which he first hid behind a tile of his bedroom ceiling, but which, fearing that it would cave in and expose him (this is a BIG porn collection, people), he eventually culled down to a kind of greatest hits collection that he kept in an old blue suitcase in the back of his closet. Reflections on the discovery of pornography and masturbation are a dime a dozen in male coming-of-age stories and memoirs, but Sampsell makes it seem fresh, new, and endearing, and that is the defining feature of this memoir.
I like to the think that the title of this book refers not to just to Sampsell’s suitcase porn collection but to humans’ endless fascination with each other. We are innately, insatiably curious about the lives of others, and memoirs, in their way, have become a kind of literary pornography, an opportunity to exercise voyeurism in a socially acceptable way and to peer into experiences that are simultaneously banal and noteworthy. Tolstoy was right; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way, and it is Sampsell’s ability to see that in his own family and excise the best bits that makes A Common Pornography feel so original. A Common Pornography has earned a spot in my mental blue suitcase of memoir greatest hits, and I can’t wait to see what Sampsell will do next. 4.5 out of 5.
Hey, FTC: I received a copy of this book from the publisher.
I support independent bookstores and am an IndieBound affiliate. If you purchase A Common Pornography through one of my links, I’ll receive a small commission….which I will promptly spend at an indie bookstore, keeping the cycle going.
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I’ll leave the commenting on pornography and masturbation to others in order to tell you that I really LIKE “unputdownable”. My friend Taylor hates the term “compulsively readable.” She feels like it’s an insult to the writer. (The Help was described that way on its dust jacket.) I wonder how she would feel about “unputdownable”…
I’m not opposed to unputdownable, but there are some very loud voices out there against it….thought it might time to find a workaound. I also kind of like “compulsively readable” because, to me, it describes a book that you just can’t stop reading. THE HELP was like that for me—I had other things to do, but I couldn’t leave the book to do them.
What a great post! I was reading through it pretty quickly and when you wrote “he eventually culled down to a kind of greatest hits collection”. At first I thought you wrote something else that rhymes with hits and would have made sense too!
Ha! Ha! Geez – I’m glad it’s Friday,
You should probably do a follow-up post a few weeks from now and what kind of traffic you actually do receive from this post! That could be fun. That was an exceptionally well-written review, I must add. I’d seen the book floating around in my periphery, but needed something like this to make me pay any attention. I enjoy unputdownable!
This is in my TBR pile and you’ve made me really anxious to read it! I love unputdownable books!
Thanks, Sandy!
Good point about the title – wonder what kind of hits you’ll get on this! Looks like an interesting read though. I’m trying to read more memoirs/bios.
I saw this book earlier but wasn’t sure what to think. I like books that attempt to step outside of the box a bit. This sounds like one of those.
BTW, I don’t mind unputdownable but I like your work-around better.
Would not normally appeal to me, but you are a great recommender so I will think about it!
I suspect you will get quite a few visitors that will quickly run away when they see the work BOOK in your title! HAHA!
This does sound interesting and a different way to approach a memoir.
Wow, this sounds great! I’m curious to see how the short vignettes work in this memoir. I also vote for a follow-up post on the misled visitors you may get.
Oh and I like “unputdownable” too (and have been known to use it in a review)!
I think you need to share search results now that this review has been up for a few days. Surprisingly, whenever I review erotica or sexual memoirs, I don’t get a lot of creepy weird searches – normally someone is looking specifically for the book.
My weird searches come from people looking up freaky inter-space hookups on Star Trek and pics of Wil Wheaton naked with a tinfoil hat poodle. I haven’t the foggiest on that one.
But I’m really curious about A Common Pornography now. I tend to stick with female writers on the sexual memoir front and it could be quite interesting to hear this male coming of age angle with all that porn.
You know, there’s really not much to tell. I’ve gotten some really bizarre search terms in response to sexuality-related titles in the past, but this doesn’t seem to have done anything yet. Maybe it’s because a book review is going to turn up pretty low on a google search for pornography?
This was a really interesting read for me, and while I wouldn’t really call it a sexual memoir because there is much more to it than that, it is certainly a different perspective. And the suitcase full of porn is too funny to miss.
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I’ve never heard of this book before. It sounds fascinating! The way you described it made me think of two graphic novel memoirs I read last year — Clumsy and Funny Misshapen Body by Jeffrey Brown. Lots of short, episodic bits and pieces about early sexual experiences, anxieties, and relationships. I’d recommend those if you haven’t read them already!
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