My Eight Dads

One dad was a college kid. One was a cancerous pedophile. One was a blundering dreamer. One was appropriately named Dick. One was an elder statesman who died as elder statesman tend to do. One carried a bible in one hand and a puppet in the other. One was a sociopathic conman. One was just happy to be husband #8. All were deformed father figures married to his mother. None escape the candid retelling of absurdity abuse negligence and narcissism in Mark Kirbys memoir. ---In this gripping and engaging memoir Mark Kirby details an abusive youth in the Pacific Northwest this intermingled with an absurd flurry of doctors visits and tests due to his recent cancer diagnosis. Mark jokes trudges and flies with us through his experiences with the eight dads he watched his mom pass through - for better or for worse: She marries em and I bury em he quips. But in this memoir he is careful not to bury his tale of child abuse without conversation all of this influenced by his recent diagnosis.