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A Common Pornography
In 2008, Kevin Sampsell's estranged father died of an aneurysm. When he returned home to Kennewick, Washington for the funeral, Kevin's mother revealed to him disturbing threads in their family history — stories of incest, madness, betrayal, and death. In A Common Pornography, he tells his family's unforgettable story — from his mother's first tumultuous marriages and his father's physical, pyschological, and sexual abuse of his half-sister to his own tales of first jobs, first bands, and first loves in the Pacific Northwest in the 70s and 80s.
One of Sampsell's previous books was written as a kind of "memory experiment," in which he recollected luminous details from his childhood in independently amusing chapters. Employing the same form of memoir in A Common Pornography, he intertwines the tragic with the everyday, the dysfunctional with the fun, lending the book its undeniable, unsensationalized reality. He captures the many shades and the whole of the Sampsell family — both its tragedy and its resiliency.
One of Sampsell's previous books was written as a kind of "memory experiment," in which he recollected luminous details from his childhood in independently amusing chapters. Employing the same form of memoir in A Common Pornography, he intertwines the tragic with the everyday, the dysfunctional with the fun, lending the book its undeniable, unsensationalized reality. He captures the many shades and the whole of the Sampsell family — both its tragedy and its resiliency.
218 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2010
About the author
Kevin Sampsell
34 books35.4k followersI am the publisher of Future Tense Books in Portland, Oregon. I work at Powell's Books and also make collage art. I have written reviews and articles for various papers and mags. I have a few books out. My memoir, A Common Pornography, was published by Harper Perennial and my novel, This Is Between Us, was published by Tin House Books. I also edited Portland Noir, a book of crime fiction published by Akashic Books. My book of collage art and poetry, I Made an Accident, came out in 2022 from Clash Books.
Here's a few links to some stuff:
My essay on the loss of a friend, the loss of a book, and depression
My Tumblr of collage!
Flash Fiction on X-R-A-Y
My essay on Prince nostalgia and going to see The Revolution
My essay about coronavirus closing down Powell's
Short story at Hobart
The sad history of my football fandom
Flash Fiction on Wigleaf
My Paper Trumpets collage column at The Rumpus
Excerpts from This Is Between Us
My Longreads essay about my mom's Alzheimer's.
My Salon essay about suicide.
Short story on Joyland
Short fiction at The Rupture
Memoir excerpt on Smith Magazine.
I Know Who You Raped Last Summer.
My essay on bookselling and winning a Patterson bonus
On my first three kisses
Poems on Ink Node
Flash memoirs at 3am Magazine
Bookslut Interview
Flash Memoir pieces on McSweeney's
Fiction piece ("Options") on Identity Theory
Interview on The Rumpus
Here's a few links to some stuff:
My essay on the loss of a friend, the loss of a book, and depression
My Tumblr of collage!
Flash Fiction on X-R-A-Y
My essay on Prince nostalgia and going to see The Revolution
My essay about coronavirus closing down Powell's
Short story at Hobart
The sad history of my football fandom
Flash Fiction on Wigleaf
My Paper Trumpets collage column at The Rumpus
Excerpts from This Is Between Us
My Longreads essay about my mom's Alzheimer's.
My Salon essay about suicide.
Short story on Joyland
Short fiction at The Rupture
Memoir excerpt on Smith Magazine.
I Know Who You Raped Last Summer.
My essay on bookselling and winning a Patterson bonus
On my first three kisses
Poems on Ink Node
Flash memoirs at 3am Magazine
Bookslut Interview
Flash Memoir pieces on McSweeney's
Fiction piece ("Options") on Identity Theory
Interview on The Rumpus
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 152 reviews
January 23, 2010
This is it. My first book with a major press. After 20 years of writing for various small presses, it feels good to have this out to (hopefully) a much wider world of readers. The fact that it's about my life makes it even more rewarding. For people who like my fiction, I think there are threads of similarity in this but I also think this book has a wider and more accessible scope. There's funny stuff, sad stuff, disturbing stuff, and some kinda sexy stuff. I think it's my my most layered and complex book. I hope you'll read it and love it. It means quite a lot to me.
March 20, 2010
I remember the moment like it was yesterday. I was lying in bed in a pair of baggy wide-legged olive green sweatpants, a stained white tank top, and for some reason a bra. A bra?! To bed?! I was just too lazy to remove it. And then, on page * of Kevin Sampsell's memoir "A Common Pornography," I realized that I was in the midst of something really special: The first contender for "Top Three Worst Books of 2010." I felt a rush of adrenaline that my body probably mistook for an aerobic workout.
Until that point, this collection of vignettes about growing up was just boring. But in the section about the upstairs neighbor girl entitled "Jaynee," Sampsell's father is especially attentive to the little girl. Late at night, young Sampsell lies in his bedroom below Jaynee's apartment and hears sounds from upstairs. "We wondered what was in her heart," Sampsell wrote of the little girl. Gag.
I see what Sampsell is doing here. His large family is a collection of half-siblings, and his father is a pedophile first, an asshole second. So he takes a series of unspectacular memories that rarely have anything to do with his family, and provides snapshot of his life -- yet packages it as something prompted by the death of his father, who really plays a very minor role. Like, he wouldn't even be listed in the credits. Some writers can do this -- write in the slow, quiet voice Sampsell is aping. In fact, Nick Flynn just did it in "The Ticking is the Bomb." But Sampsell mistakes "slow, quiet voice," for lifeless tedium about Joan Jett tapes, playing with the neighbor boys, and the collection of high school girls he dated into his 20s.
Frankly, this is a series that should have been titled "Kevin Sampsell: 101 Different Ways to Get a Handy." He steals what the Beastie Boys would call "porno mags"; He gets a handy from one of his friends while his girlfriend hooks up with another dude; He clips photos of an eclectic mix of ladies from said magazines, and files them in a folder; He gets another handy from a freeloader at a film booth in an adult bookstore.
There are girlfriends, and DJ gigs, and rock bands and open mics where he reads his poetry and sorta makes a name for himself as Mr. Poetry Man. But none of this has his fingerprints on it. It is just generic stories that everyone has, but stripped so bear that they aren't stories to relate to.
Until that point, this collection of vignettes about growing up was just boring. But in the section about the upstairs neighbor girl entitled "Jaynee," Sampsell's father is especially attentive to the little girl. Late at night, young Sampsell lies in his bedroom below Jaynee's apartment and hears sounds from upstairs. "We wondered what was in her heart," Sampsell wrote of the little girl. Gag.
I see what Sampsell is doing here. His large family is a collection of half-siblings, and his father is a pedophile first, an asshole second. So he takes a series of unspectacular memories that rarely have anything to do with his family, and provides snapshot of his life -- yet packages it as something prompted by the death of his father, who really plays a very minor role. Like, he wouldn't even be listed in the credits. Some writers can do this -- write in the slow, quiet voice Sampsell is aping. In fact, Nick Flynn just did it in "The Ticking is the Bomb." But Sampsell mistakes "slow, quiet voice," for lifeless tedium about Joan Jett tapes, playing with the neighbor boys, and the collection of high school girls he dated into his 20s.
Frankly, this is a series that should have been titled "Kevin Sampsell: 101 Different Ways to Get a Handy." He steals what the Beastie Boys would call "porno mags"; He gets a handy from one of his friends while his girlfriend hooks up with another dude; He clips photos of an eclectic mix of ladies from said magazines, and files them in a folder; He gets another handy from a freeloader at a film booth in an adult bookstore.
There are girlfriends, and DJ gigs, and rock bands and open mics where he reads his poetry and sorta makes a name for himself as Mr. Poetry Man. But none of this has his fingerprints on it. It is just generic stories that everyone has, but stripped so bear that they aren't stories to relate to.
May 5, 2010
I feel really, really guilty that I didn't like this book more than I did. I mean, everything I know about Kevin Sampsell (who is my "friend" on both GR and FB) makes me think he's terrific: really creative, quite influential in the indie press scene, very nice and funny and interesting. And I knew a good deal about this book going in, so I was seriously planning to love it, to be blown away by the captivating insanity of an incredibly fascinating, fucked-up life. I was expecting a lot of blood and gore, as it were. Not actual blood or gore; I mean, I knew it was a story about a super fucked-up childhood, so I thought there would be intensely graphic and emotionally devastating moments throughout. And there were a few of those, but they were very far between, and this is a strange thing for me to complain about, I know, because I don't even particularly like extremely intense despair or graphic abuse or anything like that at all. But it just seemed like Kevin spent so much time meandering toward the bad things, or like he gave the bad things equal weight in the body of the memoir as he did to things like this one kid's nickname in the fourth grade or a house on fire down the street or how much he liked football statistics or where in his room he kept his porn stash. And clearly this is an intentional tactic, and maybe is meant to be a comment on how much weight bad shit should carry in one's memory of one's life, and I really do respect Kevin a lot for putting everything out there like this, honestly I do. But I'm really sorry to have to say that I just couldn't make an emotional connection with nearly anything. A few scenes stick out -- a bunch of his friends getting drunk and failing terribly at a porn shoot; his job at a "taternuts" (potato-dough donuts) shop; some weird experimental poetry performances -- but most of the rest of what I was expecting to be a terribly intense, upsetting book has blurred in my memory -- only a couple of weeks later! -- into just a random jumble of not particularly interesting anecdotes from a lived life.
February 3, 2010
I think Montambo was reading this so when I saw it for sale I flipped through, liked, bought.
I just went to the author's reading at Powell's. If the book doesn't have a "voice" written into it, an attempt to capture an accent or regional slurring, I "hear" the words with a soothing, resonant, deep tone. Male and female characters, all the same. Sampsell's real voice was surprisingly (to me) soft, lispy, and soothingly nerdy. I had a major eyestrain headache brewing and almost decided to just go home from work. The author works at Powell's so he had a good supportive crowd. At the reading there was a proposal, it was accepted, everyone clapped. I think it made my headache worse, all those happy people and me just an observer. I'm glad I went.
The blurb already speaks of the format so I'll just say I like it. Not every chapter/story was illuminating or touching or brilliant, but not every episode in a life is like that either. Each little bit was a brick in the construct that was his life. Some were better in hearing it aloud, where the author could insert key pauses; comedic timing loses some nuance in writing.
There was nothing extraordinarily heroic or dastardly. I most appreciated the ordinary parts, or rather, the normal screwed-up family tales that sort of reminded me of mine. Granted his was a bit more screwy, and unfortunately tragic for some of his siblings.
The next stage or phase of his life is starting. I'm sure to him it's more of a smeared continuum, taken day by day, but to an observer that proposal felt like the real ending to this book which began with his family history and ended with his feelings about his father's passing.
I just went to the author's reading at Powell's. If the book doesn't have a "voice" written into it, an attempt to capture an accent or regional slurring, I "hear" the words with a soothing, resonant, deep tone. Male and female characters, all the same. Sampsell's real voice was surprisingly (to me) soft, lispy, and soothingly nerdy. I had a major eyestrain headache brewing and almost decided to just go home from work. The author works at Powell's so he had a good supportive crowd. At the reading there was a proposal, it was accepted, everyone clapped. I think it made my headache worse, all those happy people and me just an observer. I'm glad I went.
The blurb already speaks of the format so I'll just say I like it. Not every chapter/story was illuminating or touching or brilliant, but not every episode in a life is like that either. Each little bit was a brick in the construct that was his life. Some were better in hearing it aloud, where the author could insert key pauses; comedic timing loses some nuance in writing.
There was nothing extraordinarily heroic or dastardly. I most appreciated the ordinary parts, or rather, the normal screwed-up family tales that sort of reminded me of mine. Granted his was a bit more screwy, and unfortunately tragic for some of his siblings.
The next stage or phase of his life is starting. I'm sure to him it's more of a smeared continuum, taken day by day, but to an observer that proposal felt like the real ending to this book which began with his family history and ended with his feelings about his father's passing.
August 18, 2011
A few weeks ago I was in the back seat of a car for 12+ hours. I arrived at my friends well prepared for the trip, a bag loaded with all kinds of boredom distractors (sudoku, knitting, novels, short stories, ipod, etc). But on the way out of my friends house I noticed this book on her shelf and started reading it while she finished packing.
I didn't touch the other stuff in my anti-boredom bag after starting Kevin's book. The book is interesting and sometimes funny and sometimes sad and frequently shocking. He maintains the same even handed tone throughout the entire book. There are some parts that had me so wide eyed and curious for reflection that I couldn't believe he just let it be and then I realized that to do anything otherwise would have been inconsistent with the rest of the stories.
But it wasn't just the shocking stuff that kept me turning the pages, it was also the sweet or seemingly benign memories that I enjoyed. Written in short bursts, sometimes just a single paragraph, made it feel like what memories really are: bits and pieces of experiences at times and whole episodes of life changing events at others.
I didn't touch the other stuff in my anti-boredom bag after starting Kevin's book. The book is interesting and sometimes funny and sometimes sad and frequently shocking. He maintains the same even handed tone throughout the entire book. There are some parts that had me so wide eyed and curious for reflection that I couldn't believe he just let it be and then I realized that to do anything otherwise would have been inconsistent with the rest of the stories.
But it wasn't just the shocking stuff that kept me turning the pages, it was also the sweet or seemingly benign memories that I enjoyed. Written in short bursts, sometimes just a single paragraph, made it feel like what memories really are: bits and pieces of experiences at times and whole episodes of life changing events at others.
February 26, 2010
I loved Sampsell's book. As a writing teacher, I'm always looking for examples of an author choosing the right structure/form to capture the subject matter. And this is precisely what makes "A Common Pornography" work so well: the symbiosis between the vignettes, the accumulation of their power as the narrative goes on. Suddenly, all the short pieces you've read compile themselves into a fully realized portrait, like tiles forming a stunning mosaic.
December 11, 2009
Meh. A slapdash memoir of growing up dysfunctional in the Pacific Northwest from the publisher of Future Tense books. Has a modest twist in that it is composed of brief "snapshot" chapters with intriguing-seeming one-word titles: laziness masquerading as structural innovation. Also, the guy seems like kind of an asshole.
March 1, 2010
Kevin is a righteous writer/editor/Powell's small-press section curator dude I know from the early Aught's online literary world and Eyeshot. We're both Sixers fans, and at one point in his memoir he mentions Sedale Threatt, the best-named backup point guard during Charles Barkley's (or anyone's) era. Started reading this right after the Canadians beat the US in hockey and finished a little after midnight. I rarely read 216 pages in a single sitting, but I found the short chapters consumable, the language clear and affectationless, and the pace at which he provided serious information about himself and his family intriguing. The language acts the same no matter the content. And, despite the title, most of the short chapters are almost sentimental in their nostalgia for the "common" moments of childhood and adolescence, something I generally find sort of pukey. But not here. In part because without revving up the language or freaking things out at any time, in the exact same very even, nearly anonymous American voice (a good thing), he intersperses confessions re: his family's dysfunction and his, um, lowest moments. At times I was thinking why am I reading this? Why confess all this? But I think the effect for me was like a slideshow, with each image eliciting associations from my own childhood studded with long-gone friends, KISS concerts, Sedale Threatt, and a little later on, shooting hoops for hours (in the pitch dark, in my case) on a certain psychoactive. I guess I'm saying I found it "relatable" -- a very steady, mature, accessible tone lets this connection happen. Insightful, without dropping bombs of hard-won wisdom etc. Other than when I said SEEEEEDALE THREEEEEEAT! or when I emitted one big LOL, I read silently, patiently. Superadmirably honest in content and form. Definitely worth the trip down ye olde memory lane, the author's and the reader's.
September 16, 2009
composed of brief, chronological accounts, a common pornography is kevin sampsell's unabashedly frank memoir. recounting the formative incidents of his youth, sampsell writes with great courage about family drama, sexual exploration, and the inevitable uncertainties of adolescence.
written without pathos, sentimentalism, or apology, kevin never resorts to the banal, woe-is-me affectations that have come to mark so many autobiographical works of late. funny, tragic, touching, and often unbelievable, a common pornography is the true tale of one man's precarious, often arduous, journey into adulthood.
go sixers!
written without pathos, sentimentalism, or apology, kevin never resorts to the banal, woe-is-me affectations that have come to mark so many autobiographical works of late. funny, tragic, touching, and often unbelievable, a common pornography is the true tale of one man's precarious, often arduous, journey into adulthood.
go sixers!
October 28, 2018
I'm going to Powells to do an event for my book "Tosh" in February, and the author Kevin Sampsell is kind enough to interview me about my memoir. Due that I will meet him, I read and purchased his own childhood/teenage memoir "A Common Pornography" regarding his family life, and I'm totally knocked out by it. Each person's history is an individual map of growing up and dealing with one's surroundings. Kevin's book is difficult to put down, and I found it fascinating, in the way he describes his family structure, which is very complicated. Of course, as I read his book, I thought about my book. And I feel that there are common grounds, such as family life, but also the fact that both of us are publishers, and also booksellers (him at Powell's, and me at Book Soup) for a great deal of time. I'm really looking forward to meeting him. And, his book is fantastic. Get it and read the book.
March 13, 2019
Overall, I found this pretty charming. The book is predicated on the type of insight into the ephemeral & intimate that is extremely my jam, and Melody Owen’s photo-collages enhanced the visceral experience of imagining someone else’s childhood. A good book for the bus. I walked away feeling curious, creative, and somewhat melancholy. It got me thinking about Mattilda Bernstein Sycamore’s claims that nostalgia is violent (which I’m inclined to agree with), and I’d be curious to hear Kevin Sampsell’s response.
February 24, 2010
Many thanks to Harper Perennial for sending me a copy of Kevin Sampsell's "A Common Pornography" for review. Had they not generously shipped it to me, I am ashamed to admit I may never have read it. Those who know me, and my taste in literature, would not be surprised by that statement. I am pretty vocal when it comes to non-fiction. I tend to steer clear for many reasons, which I shall spare you the details of here. Let's just say reading "A Child Called It" when I was younger, and more recently "Eating Animals" have scarred me for life (for different reasons, of course!).
My first reaction, as I started reading, was one of disbelief. It's hard to believe that all of this stuff happened to one person. I had to keep reminding myself that this was a collection of memories, real situtations that happened with real people. What a crazy life this must have been for him.
My second reaction was "oh my god! His family and friends are going to read this! What will his mother think? What will his SON think?"
It certainly takes a very strong, confident person to take the good, bad, and horrific moments in their lives and write them all out for the entire world to see. And it's not just enough to write them out, is it? It's a matter of accepting the truth... of holding that mirror up to yourself and not flinching at what looks back at you. It's a matter of understanding that these are the moments that have shaped you, that made you who you are today.
I had to constantly remind myself that the words I had been reading were real. That this was not just a fictional story of made up characters that have all these hilarious, embarrassing, and sometimes frightening things happening to them. That these are real moments that occured in a real persons life.
I want to thank Kevin for opening up, and being brave enough to share these snapshots of his life with me. He helped me to realise that I am not the only one out there with skeletons in my closet, memories that make my skin crawl and others that make me laugh till I cry. He helped me realise that it is natural to be human.
Don't let this memoir pass you by. Don't wait for a copy to fall into your lap.
My first reaction, as I started reading, was one of disbelief. It's hard to believe that all of this stuff happened to one person. I had to keep reminding myself that this was a collection of memories, real situtations that happened with real people. What a crazy life this must have been for him.
My second reaction was "oh my god! His family and friends are going to read this! What will his mother think? What will his SON think?"
It certainly takes a very strong, confident person to take the good, bad, and horrific moments in their lives and write them all out for the entire world to see. And it's not just enough to write them out, is it? It's a matter of accepting the truth... of holding that mirror up to yourself and not flinching at what looks back at you. It's a matter of understanding that these are the moments that have shaped you, that made you who you are today.
I had to constantly remind myself that the words I had been reading were real. That this was not just a fictional story of made up characters that have all these hilarious, embarrassing, and sometimes frightening things happening to them. That these are real moments that occured in a real persons life.
I want to thank Kevin for opening up, and being brave enough to share these snapshots of his life with me. He helped me to realise that I am not the only one out there with skeletons in my closet, memories that make my skin crawl and others that make me laugh till I cry. He helped me realise that it is natural to be human.
Don't let this memoir pass you by. Don't wait for a copy to fall into your lap.
November 9, 2009
Kevin Sampsell's writing has a surgical deadpan quality that instills every word with tension. Which has one effect when applied to his comical or psychosexual short stories, but quite another when he's describing his own traumatic childhood and creepy family dramas in this new memoir.
Honestly, I'm not a fan of the memoir genre. And because Kevin is a friend of mine, this book has a completely different effect on me than it would on a stranger. If you don't know Kevin personally, here are some ways to simulate the highly enjoyable memoir-reading experience I just had:
* Get to know Kennewick, Washington -- Slurpee Capitol of the World, and next-door neighbor to the Hanford Nuclear Mistake. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kennewic...
* Get to know today's mature, sophisticated Kevin Sampsell, hero of the Powell's Books small press section and publisher of Future Tense Books.
http://www.powells.com/essays/sampsel...
* See the younger, sexier, more scary Kevin Sampsell in the excellent mid-eighties video documentary "Kevin Sampsell: The Spokane Years"
(still looking for the link, watch this space ...)
* Wear a sexy pair of 1950's horn-rim glasses while you read this book. Kevin was wearing them before anybody; he will wear them to his grave.
Honestly, I'm not a fan of the memoir genre. And because Kevin is a friend of mine, this book has a completely different effect on me than it would on a stranger. If you don't know Kevin personally, here are some ways to simulate the highly enjoyable memoir-reading experience I just had:
* Get to know Kennewick, Washington -- Slurpee Capitol of the World, and next-door neighbor to the Hanford Nuclear Mistake. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kennewic...
* Get to know today's mature, sophisticated Kevin Sampsell, hero of the Powell's Books small press section and publisher of Future Tense Books.
http://www.powells.com/essays/sampsel...
* See the younger, sexier, more scary Kevin Sampsell in the excellent mid-eighties video documentary "Kevin Sampsell: The Spokane Years"
(still looking for the link, watch this space ...)
* Wear a sexy pair of 1950's horn-rim glasses while you read this book. Kevin was wearing them before anybody; he will wear them to his grave.
July 26, 2013
I don't read much memoir, don't generally enjoy it. What I loved about A COMMON PORNOGRAPHY (in the running for Best Title Ever, by the way) illustrates well what I don't like in more conventional memoir. A COMMON PORNOGRAPHY is written in short segments, roughly--but not strictly--in chronological order. They're fragments, postcards that stand on their own but of course echo each other and build in layers to form an impression of Sampsell's early life. Which is to say, this memoir is written in a way that reflects our actual experience of memory. The experience of reading it feels true, feels like genuine access to the author and the way his mind moves.
October 28, 2007
This is probably my favorite of my own books, maybe because it's the most personal. I was surprised about all the feedback I got about this book (a series of vignettes about growing up in Kennewick, Washington, and doing things that boys do). There were only about 600 printed so it's pretty hard to find now. I'm working on a longer version of this to republish. Any interested publishers out there?
December 11, 2018
This guy had a childhood and grew up and did stuff in the 80s and 90s. He had a dickhead dad, who was a rapist and possibly a pedophile and voyeur. This guy is obsessed with sex. The things he gets most excited about in life are giving oral sex to women and acid, because that's when he uses exclamation points. He's also the type that can't deal when his girlfriend gets an abortion or has a miscarriage.
December 5, 2016
Three days ago, I had never heard of Kevin Sampsell. I was playing that fun game where I look for jobs in towns I like and found some librarian who adored Kevin Sampsell, so I immediately stopped looking for hypothetical jobs and went down the inter webs into a Kevin Sampsell rabbit hole.
Kevin Sampsell is a powerful writer. He is honest and quirky and clean. I love a clean writer. Not 'clean' as in he doesn't cuss or mention he allowed some random to jack him off in a porn booth with cum jooked floors, but clean as in- his sentences are tight. You think you are reading one kind of thing, then you get delightfully sucker punched with something totally different.
"A few times I drove past early-morning commuters, driving slowly with their headlights on, sipping coffee from their travel mugs, half asleep and unaware that a scared, naked man debated whether or not to plow into them with his car like a missile."
See. Clean sentences ending with WTF? I like that.
The time setting was so nostalgia inducing. Remember when you had to wait for the 5 o'clock news or a newspaper to know what was happening? No? Too bad.
"I rode my bike to the drug store every day that week to read the national newspapers..."
I remember driving to the nearest town- 30 miles away, so my dad could buy The Oregonian news paper. We lived in Oregon, but the only news we got was from Idaho. Anything further east then Pendleton was another country.
When Sampsell wrote about Mt St Helens blew and he thought is was doomsday- I laughed out loud in rememberance. That was a common thought in the region. Again, news was not broadcast 4 minutes after an event. The adults would all muddle around trying to make sense of something, like the sky blackening and ash falling from the air.
Being from eastern Oregon, I am very familiar with the tri-cities area and can 'see' his hometown, see his neighbors, and get who he is talking about. It makes me both nostalgic and repulsed at the same time, because as odd and awful and engaging as his story is- I know that some version of it was playing out in so many shitty small towns. That's what makes me adore Sampsell for telling the story, and what makes me so happy I live (literally) on another continent from places like Pasco, Hermiston, Baker City, and Spokane.
The vignettes worked for me until they didn't. Some of them were so insanely well written, I can't imagine them ending any other way. Other chapters were like listening to someone tell you a story, then get up and leave the house in the middle of it. "WHAT HAPPENED? Damn you, tell me what happened next?" I would want to yell at the book.
Like in the vibrator chapter. So weird, what dad does that and what happened next?
Sampsell obviously needs to write more about this childhood. There are questions to be answered.
Kevin Sampsell is a powerful writer. He is honest and quirky and clean. I love a clean writer. Not 'clean' as in he doesn't cuss or mention he allowed some random to jack him off in a porn booth with cum jooked floors, but clean as in- his sentences are tight. You think you are reading one kind of thing, then you get delightfully sucker punched with something totally different.
"A few times I drove past early-morning commuters, driving slowly with their headlights on, sipping coffee from their travel mugs, half asleep and unaware that a scared, naked man debated whether or not to plow into them with his car like a missile."
See. Clean sentences ending with WTF? I like that.
The time setting was so nostalgia inducing. Remember when you had to wait for the 5 o'clock news or a newspaper to know what was happening? No? Too bad.
"I rode my bike to the drug store every day that week to read the national newspapers..."
I remember driving to the nearest town- 30 miles away, so my dad could buy The Oregonian news paper. We lived in Oregon, but the only news we got was from Idaho. Anything further east then Pendleton was another country.
When Sampsell wrote about Mt St Helens blew and he thought is was doomsday- I laughed out loud in rememberance. That was a common thought in the region. Again, news was not broadcast 4 minutes after an event. The adults would all muddle around trying to make sense of something, like the sky blackening and ash falling from the air.
Being from eastern Oregon, I am very familiar with the tri-cities area and can 'see' his hometown, see his neighbors, and get who he is talking about. It makes me both nostalgic and repulsed at the same time, because as odd and awful and engaging as his story is- I know that some version of it was playing out in so many shitty small towns. That's what makes me adore Sampsell for telling the story, and what makes me so happy I live (literally) on another continent from places like Pasco, Hermiston, Baker City, and Spokane.
The vignettes worked for me until they didn't. Some of them were so insanely well written, I can't imagine them ending any other way. Other chapters were like listening to someone tell you a story, then get up and leave the house in the middle of it. "WHAT HAPPENED? Damn you, tell me what happened next?" I would want to yell at the book.
Like in the vibrator chapter. So weird, what dad does that and what happened next?
Sampsell obviously needs to write more about this childhood. There are questions to be answered.
May 26, 2010
I stand in awe of anyone who can write and publish a memoir, for two reasons: first, that some people have had lives interesting enough that anyone wants to read about them; and second, that some people are brave enough to write about particular incidents and personality quirks -- see, esp., one's sex life -- without altering the details to make themselves look more noble, more thoughtful, or more mature than they really are.
Kevin Sampsell succeeded in impressing me on both counts. I will confess that I was predisposed toward liking this memoir, as Kevin is almost exactly my age (he's about a year younger), and I figured that we'd share certain of the same childhood experiences. Well, it turns out that we did -- in superficial ways, anyway, such as liking the same music, recording songs from the radio, etc.
But it's not only shared experience that made this book worthwhile. Sampsell's style is somewhat non-traditional for this genre -- discrete memories, placed roughly chronologically, to tell the story of Sampsell's childhood and young adulthood, along with that of his brothers and sisters (most notably, the inutterably sad story of his half-sister Elinda, and her sexual abuse at the hands of Sampsell's father). The non-traditional form, though, is more true-to-life than the form you find in most memoirs -- after all, we really do tend to remember our childhoods in episodes, sometimes vivid ones that come back to us after laying dormant for years. Here, as with our own stories, the episodes come together to give an indelible account of a life -- one in which the protagonist doesn't necessarily try to convince you that he's someone you'd like to spend time with.
Sampsell has written memoir that's often sad, sometimes loud-out-loud funny (the virtual-reality dentist episode is what James Frey probably wished he'd written), but always brave and ultimately hopeful.
Kevin Sampsell succeeded in impressing me on both counts. I will confess that I was predisposed toward liking this memoir, as Kevin is almost exactly my age (he's about a year younger), and I figured that we'd share certain of the same childhood experiences. Well, it turns out that we did -- in superficial ways, anyway, such as liking the same music, recording songs from the radio, etc.
But it's not only shared experience that made this book worthwhile. Sampsell's style is somewhat non-traditional for this genre -- discrete memories, placed roughly chronologically, to tell the story of Sampsell's childhood and young adulthood, along with that of his brothers and sisters (most notably, the inutterably sad story of his half-sister Elinda, and her sexual abuse at the hands of Sampsell's father). The non-traditional form, though, is more true-to-life than the form you find in most memoirs -- after all, we really do tend to remember our childhoods in episodes, sometimes vivid ones that come back to us after laying dormant for years. Here, as with our own stories, the episodes come together to give an indelible account of a life -- one in which the protagonist doesn't necessarily try to convince you that he's someone you'd like to spend time with.
Sampsell has written memoir that's often sad, sometimes loud-out-loud funny (the virtual-reality dentist episode is what James Frey probably wished he'd written), but always brave and ultimately hopeful.
July 30, 2012
Last month I took a class that Kevin Sampsell taught (along with Chloe Caldwell) and my interest in reading and writing memoir was piqued. Kevin mentioned he had written this book, so I decided to read it. It was all the more exciting because I love reading people's writing that I know or have even just met, in Kevin's case.
The book is told in little vignettes and short essays on his youth spent in Kennewick, WA. The first parts of the book establish a somber tone that seemed to linger through the entire thing, at least for me. Nothing I read later on was really funny, in light of knowing that their dad was a pedophile and got his older (not blood related if I understood correctly,but still...)sister pregnant. It was disturbing.
Still, I could relate to the awkwardness of his teen years, and the need for love and affection from the opposite sex. There are some somewhat brow raising tales of love and sex, porn-booths and prostitutes. He also talks of some of his first jobs and living in different cities as he moved into young adulthood. I was never bored. Even the little moments that seemed inconsequential, weren't because I knew they were important to him. He was writing about it, so it must have meant something. That's what counts to me. Plus little things can have a big impact on a person's life.
I liked the style that the book was written in, it made it seem easier to read, having everything broken down into the vignettes. It flowed well. I wish I could have had a bit more reflection on the darker aspects of his life. Or maybe a piece that tied together all of the times he felt like crying or killing himself, or hated his dad or anyone else...that's really just my preference though.
Verdict: I look forward to reading more writing from Mr. Sampsell.
The book is told in little vignettes and short essays on his youth spent in Kennewick, WA. The first parts of the book establish a somber tone that seemed to linger through the entire thing, at least for me. Nothing I read later on was really funny, in light of knowing that their dad was a pedophile and got his older (not blood related if I understood correctly,but still...)sister pregnant. It was disturbing.
Still, I could relate to the awkwardness of his teen years, and the need for love and affection from the opposite sex. There are some somewhat brow raising tales of love and sex, porn-booths and prostitutes. He also talks of some of his first jobs and living in different cities as he moved into young adulthood. I was never bored. Even the little moments that seemed inconsequential, weren't because I knew they were important to him. He was writing about it, so it must have meant something. That's what counts to me. Plus little things can have a big impact on a person's life.
I liked the style that the book was written in, it made it seem easier to read, having everything broken down into the vignettes. It flowed well. I wish I could have had a bit more reflection on the darker aspects of his life. Or maybe a piece that tied together all of the times he felt like crying or killing himself, or hated his dad or anyone else...that's really just my preference though.
Verdict: I look forward to reading more writing from Mr. Sampsell.
January 29, 2010
Many coming-of-age memoirs depict a journey through hellish abuse. Sampsell’s verbal snapshots capture the more peripheral scene of a kid along for the ride, under the watchful eye of a distant, resentful father—“a humorless, God-fearing bore.” For many who grew up in the 1970s and ’80s, the details of this American life will be familiar: the music, the sports teams, the Jaws-inspired aquaphobia, the release of the hostages from Iran, the mannerist rebellion of New Wave. Other aspects will resonate with males, from the naive cruelty of boys to elaborate strategies built around the acquisition and secretion of dirty magazines, to a candid account of obsession with girls and/or sex that recalls Jeffrey Brown’s tell-all graphic novels. McSweeney’s readers may recall some of these pieces reworked and fleshed out from an earlier chapbook, and while some newer passages (such as those about the abuse and institutionalization of Sampsell’s half-sister) feel arbitrarily chopped into vignettes, mostly the material perfectly fits the form, shards of memory fused into a compelling concretion of moments. A worthy addition to the work of such contemporary memoirists as Nick Flynn, Augusten Burroughs, Dave Eggers, and Stephen Elliott.
April 20, 2010
Several of my friends told me that I needed to read this book for the interesting way in which it deals with memory.
Several of my friends said that they found this book to be interesting, but hard to read due to the fragmented state of its narrative.
I honestly have to go with the first group if I am to take sides. I honestly din't find this memoir hard to read in any way. In fact, I found its matter-of-fact approach to memories a bit less ego-istic than most memoirs. The "main character" in this seldom tries to reconcile or explain the memories. The fractured family is presented as-is. In bits and pieces of memory - not only the authors, but also his siblings.
In some way, this memoir feels very honest to me. Perhaps part of that is that I can find a certain understanding and kinship among these memories, perhaps because of the simple way that this is presented. Though it is a published memoir, it seems free of artifice.
Of all people, I understand that is not entirely possible, but this is presented in such a way that it seems so. I appreciate the experiment and would be interested in examining my own fractured memories in the same way and see if they also fill a satisfying narrative.
Several of my friends said that they found this book to be interesting, but hard to read due to the fragmented state of its narrative.
I honestly have to go with the first group if I am to take sides. I honestly din't find this memoir hard to read in any way. In fact, I found its matter-of-fact approach to memories a bit less ego-istic than most memoirs. The "main character" in this seldom tries to reconcile or explain the memories. The fractured family is presented as-is. In bits and pieces of memory - not only the authors, but also his siblings.
In some way, this memoir feels very honest to me. Perhaps part of that is that I can find a certain understanding and kinship among these memories, perhaps because of the simple way that this is presented. Though it is a published memoir, it seems free of artifice.
Of all people, I understand that is not entirely possible, but this is presented in such a way that it seems so. I appreciate the experiment and would be interested in examining my own fractured memories in the same way and see if they also fill a satisfying narrative.
January 20, 2010
I bought this earlier today and read the entire thing tonight. The book largely recounts stories of Sampsell's sexual awakening, his failed coming-of-age romances, and his memories of an unlikable, distant father. It accurately captures how subtly rebellious children can be, and in turn how foolishly irrational adults can be. It does all this without glorifying the narrator (or even really demonizing the father), and comes across surprising honest. Just the facts. Much of it makes me nostalgic for that time before the information age when the world was much smaller, simpler, and yet more mysterious. (With that being said, I suggest its good to read this by the computer so you can supplement it by looking up the various football players, songs, obscure country music stars, and 80s references mentioned throughout the book.) Good art inspires people, and after reading this book I can't help but feel inspired to look at my own life and all the stories its full of, everything I could tell.
October 30, 2009
Folks in the book world may recognize this author's name--he's Powell's Bookstore's event coordinator. He's written quite a bit in the past (LIT, Hobart, McSweeney's, Night Train just to name a few journals and web sites, as well as two short story collections of his own) and is the editor of Portland Noir. He's also the publisher of Future Tense Books. But this book is different--this is personal, about his family and his life as a young man that he calls "a memory experiment". Written in short vignettes primarily, this book is brutally honest and
gritty. He glosses over nothing--abuse, drugs, sex, relationships of all sorts. He's not the sort to change much of anything to protect the innocent because frankly, none of them are that innocent. This book is bold and brave and extremely difficult to put down.
gritty. He glosses over nothing--abuse, drugs, sex, relationships of all sorts. He's not the sort to change much of anything to protect the innocent because frankly, none of them are that innocent. This book is bold and brave and extremely difficult to put down.
November 9, 2009
One of the most daring pieces of non-fiction writing that I have ever read. Kevin Sampsell speaks about his life in a tone that is both intimate and slightly distant, never romanticizing his adolescence but rather focusing on moments of doubt, and embarrassment, and the seemingly mundane. As a character in his own story, Kevin is often too flawed to root for, but it is then, in the moments when he is the least likable, that he becomes the most relatable. Kevin Sampsell, from his own account, has been as petty, selfish, and lonely as the rest of us, but the difference is that he is a man who is willing to talk about it. Where most people writing a memoir would cast themselves as either the hero or the victim, Kevin writes about himself as if he is a man and nothing more, and A COMMON PORNOGRAPHY is all the better for it.
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February 5, 2010Jackie says:
Folks in the book world may recognize this author's name--he's Powell's Bookstore's event coordinator. He's written quite a bit in the past (LIT, Hobart, McSweeney's, Night Train just to name a few journals and web sites, as well as two short story collections of his own) and is the editor of Portland Noir. He's also the publisher of Future Tense Books. But this book is different--this is personal, about his family and his life as a young man that he calls "a memory experiment". Written in short vignettes primarily, this book is brutally honest and gritty. He glosses over nothing--abuse, drugs, sex, relationships of all sorts. He's not the sort to change much of anything to protect the innocent because frankly, none of them are that innocent. This book is bold and brave and extremely difficult to put down.
Folks in the book world may recognize this author's name--he's Powell's Bookstore's event coordinator. He's written quite a bit in the past (LIT, Hobart, McSweeney's, Night Train just to name a few journals and web sites, as well as two short story collections of his own) and is the editor of Portland Noir. He's also the publisher of Future Tense Books. But this book is different--this is personal, about his family and his life as a young man that he calls "a memory experiment". Written in short vignettes primarily, this book is brutally honest and gritty. He glosses over nothing--abuse, drugs, sex, relationships of all sorts. He's not the sort to change much of anything to protect the innocent because frankly, none of them are that innocent. This book is bold and brave and extremely difficult to put down.
January 8, 2017
This memoir by vignette doesn't shy away from the dark corners, but the book description and title make the book appear to be more salacious than it really is. Sampsell quickly becomes someone you would like to meet and someone you feel like you understand as he plops down events from his past. In many ways this is one of the most enjoyable forms of memoir for me to read. It is the same literary technique that Charles Bukowski uses in his poetry and short stories. I would also be remiss if I didn't recognize how much the style reminded me of the one used by my wife, J.A. Carter-Winward, in her own memoir/poetry/fiction books. This is a genre that I do not tire of. Great work Mr. Sampsell.
March 5, 2010
This book takes what was a really solid little zine style book and turns into a fully fleshed memoir. This is perhaps the best book about Kennewick, WA that has ever and probably will ever be written. My grandmother lived in Ephrata, and the desolation and disconnected world of Eastern Washington it captured very well in Sampsell's short pieces about the house, and for some time basement, where his family lived while he grew up. The form of the book is really great. It directly addresses the ambivelence I think many fiction writers feel about "nonfiction," and in the end it doesn't really matter a great deal if the pieces are fiction or "all the better because they are true." The book feels very true; and this is something very few "nonfiction" memoirs manage to pull off.
April 18, 2012
This has to be one of the oddest (and most interesting) memoirs I've ever read. Most memoirs I've seen seem to take some organizing viewpoint and filter everything through that, some pose that the author wants you to view their life through. Sampsell frames his work well through his experience of his father's death, but he is much more subtle about the connections between the vignettes. He seems to let the experiences speak for themselves, not acting like he's necessarily figured it all out and summarized it easily, though he stays well enough in control. He definitely has some off-beat choices about where things flow too, turns in concept and thought leaps, that can be hysterically funny at some points and starkly touching at others. It definitely isn't just another memoir.
June 3, 2010
From beginning to end, I was moved by this unique and amalgamated story. The literary design caught my attention and held it firm. Each chapter is like a secret; an unveiling of narrative that sometimes punches in the gut and at other times shyly hands over a gift. Kevin Sampsell is an envoy for an expression of a certain generation. His is a voice at ends of the spectrum: buoyant and poignant, forthright and enigmatic. After reading A Common Pornography, I looked eagerly on the shelf for other works by him.
December 19, 2012
I liked the earlier parts of this memoir best. Before Kevin's libido woke up, there were lots of interesting stories about his dysfunctional family, about his friends, about things he was thinking about. After, it was only girls/sex/girls with a sprinkling of non-horndog anecdotes. Which is probably very true-to-life what it's like to be in a young man's head, but not exactly riveting reading.
I like Sampsell's voice, I like what feels like a certain even-handedness in dealing with his past- a lack of malice that's rare in troubled family memoirs.
I like Sampsell's voice, I like what feels like a certain even-handedness in dealing with his past- a lack of malice that's rare in troubled family memoirs.
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