A Look at Alan Cumming's Secrets in Not My Father's Son

After watching Cabaret, the Tin Man series and Instinct, I watched a ton of clips on YouTube of Alan Cumming's interviews and even found his Who Do You Think You Are? episode. Solving his family's mystery seemed to take a toll on him, especially when he reached the climax of the show.

It's much worse these days with social media and television so integrated into our lives. We forget that celebrities, both major and minor, are real people with real families. We also forget that the ancestors of our family aren't just history; they, too, were real people. While watching Cumming uncover a family mystery, viewers don't think of what else could be happening in his life as he's filming.

As a writer and avid reader, I love stories, and while stories make life interesting and engaging, we sometimes need to remember to lift the dreamy film from stories and come to terms with the realness of said story, turning it into fact. Sometimes, I'm able to do that and to remember celebrities are real despite the screen separating me from them and put myself in their shoes. With Alan Cumming, I was able to do that.

Wanting to see if I could know more about Alan Cumming, I looked around to see if he had written any books. Lo and behold, he had, and it is a memoir at that.

Funnily enough, his book provides us with a behind-the-scenes look at when he was filming Who Do You Think You Are? because there was more family drama going on than just his investigation into his maternal grandfather on the show. Cumming also provides anecdotes of a sad and troublesome upbringing at the hands of his father. It isn't as gruesome as many Dateline cases are, but there is quite a bit of emotional and psychological abuse that he recounts.

--Spoilers Below--

Entering into the Story

Cumming alternates between anecdotes from his childhood labelled "Then" and anecdotes from his  present in 2010 labelled "Now." We see the juxtaposition of a run-of-the-mill agricultural family in Scotland with an abusive father and Cumming's Hollywood events with famous friends, his brother, Tom, and his husband, Grant. In reading the "Then" anecdotes written from the perspective of his child self, Cumming lays out the situations that demonstrate that his father flies into a berserker rage, unprovoked (in a rational sense) by Cumming's child version of himself. I was sitting there, uncomprehending of what made his father SO monstrous, so critical and so cruel.

The title, "Not My Father's Son," can be perceived two ways. I read it as if Cumming was saying he was nothing like his father in terms of personality, but it is also means that he is biologically "not his father's son," which his father believed. According to Cumming's father, Cumming's mother had had an affair with another man, and the father he grew up with was not his own. The father he grew up with was still monstrous to his biological son, Tom, though not as much compared to Alan. It leads us to wonder why Tom was not spared from Alex Cumming's wrath. Alan and Tom's mother was forced to witness her husband's many affairs, which he tormented her with for years, which seemed to Cumming in retrospect, that his father was punishing his mother for "the original sin."


The Scales of Decision

When Cumming goes to the field between villages Violaine and LA Bassée, the historian makes a comment that has Cumming later reflecting on his childhood. He recounts that his father's abuse made me believe that he did, in fact, deserve the abuse because it was his fault. On the other hand, his mother provided opposite reactions, trying to convince Cumming that he was loved and precious. In being faced with contradicting reactions, he had to make up his own mind. I can relate to that. My parents never supported my pursuit of writing, going so far as to say that having poems and short stories published in anthologies were meaningless on a CV. Outside of them, I got positive feedback about my writing, as well as encouragement. Additionally, my belief in Christianity was never strong, so again, I was faced with my parents telling me that I had to go to Church, that I was a sinner and heathen who would end up in Hell if I didn't. Outside of them, I had teachers instigating discussions about religious texts and I was confronted with realities that I was unaware of, such as gospels that had been rejected from being included in the Bible and the misogyny that targeted Eve. I never forgot a question someone asked the teacher in my 4th grade class when we were looking at Bible excerpts, "Where are the dinosaurs?". In my late teens, it was up to me to weigh both views of religion and reflect on what kind of person I was, so I would know which way to go.

Wrap-Up

I like how Alan Cumming takes us along his journey because it lends suspense and mystery to whether or not Cumming is really his father's son and what happened to his maternal grandfather (if you hadn't already seen the Who Do You Think You Are? episode). I also enjoyed seeing behind-the-scenes as he filmed or did plays. When we watch celebrities in movies and shows and on-stage, we only see them as the face of a character. 

I wasn't all that surprised that Cumming was, in fact, his father's son. From the beginning, Cumming demonstrates his father's behavior and personality, which is primarily to be uncommunicative, so no one ever knows what's wrong with him or why he says what he says. This tragic story is an excellent example of living life based on a lie. I couldn't get over what Cumming's father said about he and his son never bonding. His father never gave himself or Cumming the chance to bond. And his father's punishment of Tom is never explained. If Alex Cumming believed that his wife had had an affair and their second son was not his own, this would explain why he behaved so horribly to them, but why act the same way towards the son he believes to be his own? The only explanation Alan Cumming provides is that his father was mentally ill, but who knows? I wondered how Alex Cumming was raised by his parents, particularly his father. Perhaps that had some influence on how he was as a person and how he raised his children.

When Cumming and his brother are told that they have the legal right to their father's money after he's passed away, I thought they wouldn't take it because it would be a symbol of letting their father back in their lives. However, I am glad that they used the money for the pilgrimage. 

I like that Cumming went back to Panmure Estate to finally close the door on his father. That's something that took a lot of courage because a family home is riddled with emotions and memories. They are sown into the buildings and the fields. 

I hope to, one day, trace my ancestors on both sides of my family. I don't have any actually family mysteries (that I know of) but I love history and want to know about where the family trees start to get fuzzy back in the Old Countries.  

Do you have any family mysteries? Have you read an engaging memoir? I'd love to read your comments!

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Happy reading and writing!