Daddy Boy by Emerson Whitney
Half-memoir, half-queer theory, Emerson Whitney's Daddy Boy follows the author as they set out on an atmospheric journey of introspection
After the gradual end of a nine-year BDSM relationship founded on a constant dynamic of dominance and submission, Emerson Whitney shrugs off his adopted subordination and joins a group of storm chasers. In the back of an old van, squeezed between enthusiastic climate tourists from Essex, Whitney spends months traipsing after meteorologist Derek, chasing tornadoes that never materialise.
Blending half-recollected memoir and queer theory, Daddy Boy flits between the chasers’ Melvillian mission and Whitney’s youth in a heady, atmospheric journey of introspection. He recalls a turbulent childhood of sporadic neglect and clouded traumas, his relationship with his ex-wife, and why the catharsis found in such surrender no longer serves him. Whitney’s blunt prose buzzes with a static energy not unlike the unseen tempests that hover past the horizon of the novel, crackling with desire at its emotional and erotic highs.
Despite being an explicitly trans novel, Daddy Boy is not preoccupied by its protagonists’ queerness; there are no coming out stories, no familial rejection on the basis of his gender, no confrontations with bigotry. This is not to say that these never happened, but Whitney instead turns to questions of control, belonging, and the often undiscussed experience of aging in transmasculinity, carving a roadmap of boyhood to manhood through his relationships with the men in his life.