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Kevin Sampsell

A Common Pornography: A Memoir Paperback – January 19, 2010

by Kevin Sampsell (Author)

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In 2003 Kevin Sampsell authored a chapbook memoir of the same title. It was written as a kind of "memory experiment," in which he recollected luminous details from his childhood in independently amusing chapters. It functioned as an experiential catalogue of American youth in the 70s and 80s.

In 2008 Kevin′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 -- which retroactively colored Kevin′s memories of his upbringing and youth. He learned of his mother′s first two husbands, the fathers of his three older, mythologized half-siblings, and the havoc they wreaked on his mother. He learned of his own father′s seething resentment of his step-children, which was expressed in physical, pyschological, and sexual abuse. And he learned more about his oldest step-sister, Elinda, who, as a young girl, was labeled "feebleminded" by a teacher. When she became a teenager, she was sent to a psychiatric hospital. She entered the clinic at 98 pounds. She left two years later 200 pounds, diabetic, having endured numerous shock treatments. Then, after finally returning home, she was made pregnant by Kevin′s father. Only at the end of the book do we learn what chance in life a person like this has.

While his family′s story provides the framework of the book, what′s left in between is Kevin′s story of growing up in the Pacific Northwest. He tells of his first jobs, first bands, first loves, and one worn, teal blue suitcase filled with the choicest porn in all of Kennewick, Washington.

Employing the same form of memoir as he did in his previous book, Kevin intertwines the tragic with the everyday, the dysfunctional with the fun, lending A COMMON PORNOGRAPHY its undeniable, unsensationalized reality. The elastic conceit of his "memory experiment" captures the many shades and the whole of the Sampsell family -- both its tragedy and its resiliency. Kevin relates this history in a charming, honest, insightful, and funny voice.

Print length

218 pages
Language

English
Publication date

January 19, 2010
Dimensions

8.04 x 5.3 x 0.65 inches
ISBN-10

0061766100
ISBN-13

978-0061766107
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Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

A memoir in collage form, this frank but fragmented narrative chronicles the author's early life in the Pacific Northwest. Told in a series of small pieces, some less than a quarter of a page long, Sampsell follows a stream-of-consciousness series of memories centering loosely around a collection of family secrets unearthed after his father's funeral. Replicating the effects of memory, Sampsell's chronicle begins piecemeal and becomes more detailed as it goes, emphasizing the unfiltered honesty of the story and his efforts to tell it. Though it can be frustrating waiting for the pieces to add up, there's enough bathos, dysfunctional family antics and coming-of-age adventures-naked photoshoots, psychiatric hospitalizations, late-night donut shops and the tri-city New Wave scene-to keep readers turning pages. Sampsell's eye for detail and deadpan delivery envliven a dark personal history with bathos and a powerful desire for understanding.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From Booklist

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. --David Wright

Review

“Sampsell shares loneliness with such intensity that his book almost defeats it―both his and yours. Five stars.” — Time Out New York

“Sampsell has written a memoir almost unlike any other...a fascinating read.” — Time Out Chicago

“Its droll style and its archaeological attentiveness to the debris of American life - the remote controls, video recorders, tight ends, and one-hit wonders of yesteryear - combined with Sampsell’s talent for observing the ordinary, infuse the most ‘common’ incidents of growing up with wit and meaning.” — Harper's Magazine

“[A] rather miraculous act of artistic self-creation...his story alone is an adequate metaphor for itself, the life it describes, and its hard-won pleasures.” — BookForum

“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” — Booklist

“This is a heartbreaking and magnificent book....I am reminded of Denis Johnson’s Jesus’ Son. This is the kind of book where you want to thank the author for helping you feel less alone with being alive.” — Jonathan Ames, author of Wake Up, Sir! and The Double Life is Twice as Good

“For beauty, honesty, sheer weirdness, and a haunting evocation of place, Kevin Sampsell is my favorite Oregon writer. Ken Kesey, Chuck Palahniuk--make some room on the shelf.” — Sean Wilsey, author of Oh the Glory of it All

“Embarrassing and honest, heartbreaking and hilarious. A Common Pornography is a great memoir from one of the Northwest’s best writers.” — Willy Vlautin, author of Northline and The Motel Life

“Kevin Sampsell’s stories are brief incantations, uppercuts to the gut, prose poems given over to the bloodiest realms of the self. It’s all here: the emotional squalor, the sweet bite of loneliness. Make no mistake: Sampsell can write like hell.” — Steve Almond, author of My Life in Heavy Metal

About the Author

Kevin Sampsell has been the publisher of Future Tense Books since 1990. His own books include the short story collections Beautiful Blemish and Creamy Bullets. In 2009, he edited the anthology Portland Noir. He works for Powell's Books and lives in Portland, Oregon.

Product details

Publisher ‏ : ‎ Harper Perennial; 1st edition (January 19, 2010)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Paperback ‏ : ‎ 218 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0061766100
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0061766107
Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 6.7 ounces
Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 8.04 x 5.3 x 0.65 inches

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Kevin Sampsell

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Kevin Sampsell is the author of a novel, This Is Between Us (2013, Tin House), the memoir, A Common Pornography (2010, Harper Perennial), and a collection of collage art and poetry, I Made an Accident (Clash Books, 2022). He also edited the anthologies, Portland Noir (Akashic), and The Insomniac Reader (Manic D Press). Sampsell is the publisher of the influential micropress, Future Tense Books, which has been based in Portland, Oregon since 1992. He has worked at Powell’s Books since 1997 as an events coordinator and the head of the small press section. His writing has appeared in Southwest Review, Joyland, Salon, McSweeney’s, Tin House, Portland Review, Diagram, Hobart, Longreads, Wigleaf, and many other publications and anthologies. His collage art practice began in 2016 and his collages have been featured in Kolaj Magazine, Black Candies, The Rumpus, Maggot Brain Magazine, and elsewhere. In 2020, he and Cheryl Chudyk launched sharphandsgallery.com, where they showcase international collage artists.

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pothostea

Sad tales from childhood lack quite a bit

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on March 6, 2010

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When I was in college, I took a memoir writing class and received a piece of advice from my professor I completely agree with and keep in mind when I read memoir. Her advice was not to write a woe-is-me whinefest focusing soley on the bad things in your life.
Unfortunately Sampsell never had this professor. The memoir is made up mostly of bad memories about his childhood and specifically his father, interlaced with his experiences with sex and pornography. The result is a memoir that never breaks from gritty, dirty, and depressing.
The few portions about having fun with his friends playing basketball or dancing at a club aren't enough to break through the grim storyline.

I chose this book partly because I have met Kevin Sampsell, but mostly because it is a memoir written in short vignettes. Ever since reading The House on Mango Street in high school I have been enthralled with a novel told in vignette form. I have yet to read one done as beautifully as The House on Mango Street, but I am not giving up yet.

As many of the vignettes in this book were previosuly published as short stories, there are often times when it feels more like a collection of short stories than a collection of vingettes with a connecting story arc. Indeed, there isn't much of a story arc except that it flows from his childhood to present day life.

This is the kind of collection that will inevitably spark memories from the readers. And probably not happy memories, so be prepared for a haze of gloom to appear above your head while reading this.

It was a very quick, interesting read, and Sampsell uses great details to illustrate his stories, but I am gravely disappointed in its darkness. I had expected some startling and saddening tales of childhood woe, but I had also expected some dark humour and happy highlights as well. It just didn't feel balanced to me.

He also doesn't describe his characters very well. His mother and siblings are mere ghosts, and his father is the only one he really tries to go into but fails there as well. We are left with Sampsell's feelings, his views, but on characters barely developed.

His relationships with women are repetitious (his stories are mostly the same of each one, and they are not developed much either) and he never seems to grow as a person or to really love any of them, rather they are merely sexual objects to him. Perhaps that was his point, but it leaves me wondering why bother devoting stories to them? He could have just listed them and moved on to something else.

4 people found this helpful

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Nicole J

Couldn't put it down

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on October 13, 2013

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What I liked so much about this book was how the vignettes made me think back and remember little details about my own life and childhood. I think it's special when an author can do that. I also appreciated the simplicity of Sampsell's writing style. The little snippets weren't told in order, and some of them left me scratching my head or thinking, WTF, but I just couldn't stop reading it. I was also constantly laughing or snickering. I'm not sure if that's a good thing or not, but it got me through until the end. Definitely don't pass up on this little gem.

One person found this helpful

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Christopher R. Chadwick

Interesting possibilities, total let down

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on March 24, 2010

Verified Purchase

The family dynamic and somewhat plain style piqued my curiosity originally, but that quickly passed. These vignettes are brief, unorganized (both chronologically & stylistically) and uninteresting. The details seemed haphazard, combine that with minimal text that is still overly crafted and it becomes a jumbled mess. It seemed at times there were a few stories thrown in to spice up the memoir which only amplified the flat feel for the book.

2 people found this helpful

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Eric D. Palmer

Fantastic Book

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on June 22, 2010

Verified Purchase

Great book which offers an intimate look into Kevin's life and relationships. Despite the the huge differences in lives that we have lived, there were always those truly "human" moments that anyone can connect to.

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on February 17, 2011

A Common Pornography is a memoir, but one that breaks the mold of what a memoir should be. Told in a series of vignettes, at the heart of the story is Sampsell's relationship with his father, an angry and brutal man. While stories of his father bookend the narrative of the memoir, what makes up the meat of this story is vignette after vignette of Sampsell relating memories from his adolescence and young adult. They are not often connected, but underneath each story runs a current of trauma.

It's true that Sampsell's father was a despicable man, who does some absolutely horrible, unforgivable things. But nothing is every so simple, no person is truly evil, and Sampsell does not paint his father in a child's unambiguous terms. His father is the kind of man that can abuse his children, but lovingly bury a family pet with tears in his eyes. Does Sampsell ever connect the ways in which he struggled, with finding direction and his relationships with women? Not explicitly, but that is the suggestion.

If the title is any kind of hint, this memoir is not necessarily for the faint of heart. Sampsell leaves no stone unturned, from tales of his first experiences with sex and pornography to drug use to the abuse he witnessed as a child. The structure of this memoir serves the heavy topics well, because the reader never dwells for very long in a certain memory, and Sampsell's pacing is perfect. He keeps the tragedy of his life from outweighing the good memories, even in the structure of his memoir.

In a lot of ways, though perhaps Sampsell has more sadnesses in his life than most, it is perfectly ordinary. Sampsell's story is not necessarily unique, but it is one that deserves to be told, and one I'm so glad I read. Reflective and emotional, but also fragmented, I don't think this is a memoir that will appeal to everyone. But for me? I couldn't stop reading it.

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