When he died in 2013 of acute alcohol-induced cirrhosis, Andrew Offutt left his eldest son in charge of his bizarre legacy: almost a ton of paperback books. The books were written by Andrew over the course of more than 50 years, and the bulk was pornographic.

Chris Offutt had known his father in only a troubled, distant way, even though Andrew’s career as a porn writer had purportedly started as a financial venture when Chris needed expensive orthodontic work as a teenager. His father’s writing was done at home, in strict silence (the boy once got in trouble for urinating too loudly in the bathroom across from his father’s office). Styling himself as possibly mentally ill, with sadistic tendencies, Andrew expressed more dominance than fatherliness. When Chris returned to the family home to help his widowed mother move out, secrets about Andrew began falling into place.

"Both personal memoir and subjective biography, MY FATHER, THE PORNOGRAPHER stands as an offbeat but reasoned testament to the writer’s craft, as practiced by one especially lonely, haunted soul."

Chris recalls that the only vacations the family took were to “cons” --- conventions of fans and composers of sci-fi, western and other pornographic genres for which Andrew, often using pseudonyms, wrote avidly. For the cons, Andrew and his wife would dress in fetishistic costumes, and during the events, Andrew would not speak to his children, instead assuming one of his many personae, the best known being “John Cleve.” Something like an alter ego, Cleve (a take-off on John Cleland, author of the notorious Victorian sex novel FANNY HILL) churned out a mass of instantly profitable sleaze, culminating in a 19-book series for Playboy Press.

Chris found among his father’s effects lengthy lists of descriptions --- of breasts, orgasms, kisses and pain: “Dad was like Henry Ford applying principles of assembly-line production with premade parts…working alone, Dad could write a book in three days.” Poring over this dark material had a mind-numbing effect on Chris; he shut himself off for a time as he attempted to understand, perhaps justify, his father’s fascination with lust, cruelty and fear.

There are among the grim details of Andrew’s life as a pornographer a few redeeming sparks. He did, after all, support his wife and children with the output of his acute, if acerbic and disturbed, intellect. And Chris found a letter indicating that his father had once sent someone a copy of one of Chris’ books, an act of professional and paternal generosity that Chris would not have imagined Andrew capable of. Andrew voluntarily “resigned” from the Catholic faith rather than be considered “lapsed,” but in his last conversation with Chris, he opined that there may be an afterlife. 

Both personal memoir and subjective biography, MY FATHER, THE PORNOGRAPHER stands as an offbeat but reasoned testament to the writer’s craft, as practiced by one especially lonely, haunted soul.