Yes, daddy

Jonathan Parks-Ramage

Book - 2021

"Jonah Keller moved to New York City with dreams of becoming a successful playwright, but, for the time being, lives in a rundown sublet in Bushwick, working extra hours at a restaurant only to barely make rent. When he stumbles upon a photo of Richard Shriver--the glamorous Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright and quite possibly the stepping stone to the fame he craves--Jonah orchestrates their meeting. The two begin a hungry, passionate affair. When summer arrives, Richard invites his young lover for a spell at his sprawling estate in the Hamptons. A tall iron fence surrounds the idyllic compound where Richard and a few of his close artist friends entertain, have lavish dinners, and--Jonah can't help but notice--employ a waitstaff ...of young, attractive gay men, many of whom sport ugly bruises. Soon, Jonah is cast out of Richard's good graces and a sinister underlay begins to emerge. As a series of transgressions lead inexorably to a violent climax, Jonah hurtles toward a decisive revenge that will shape the rest of his life"--

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FICTION/Parks-Ramage, Jonathan
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Subjects
Genres
Gay fiction
Social problem fiction
Gothic fiction
Published
Boston : Houghton Mifflin Harcourt 2021.
Language
English
Main Author
Jonathan Parks-Ramage (author)
Physical Description
282 pages ; 22 cm
ISBN
9780358447719
Contents unavailable.
Review by Booklist Review

Antigay crusaders and literary elite both prey on desperate Jonah Keller in this horror-filled tale of exploitation and its aftermath. Growing up in Illinois as a pastor's son is torture for Jonah, especially after his apple-pie-cruel parents enlist evangelical counselor Doctor Jim to turn him straight. That attempt only succeeds in increasing Jonah's terror and depression, leading him to a nuclear option that breaks up his family. The present-day portion of this debut sees Jonah waiting tables in New York, failing to make ends meet while despairing that his playwriting degree will ever get him anywhere. In a desperate bid to make it, he sets his sights on an older, successful playwright, a man who takes Jonah to live in his compound, which houses other artists and is home to a criminal scheme. Violent rape scenes are numerous here and written to be appropriately nauseating. They're surrounded by empathetic narration in a story that offers all extremes, from verisimilitude to despair and from a lust for revenge to a longing for home. Fear will settle over readers as they wait for the next blow, making Jonah's story akin to that of the victim in Roxane Gay's An Untamed State (2014).

From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review

Parks-Ramage debuts with an uneven exploration of abuse at the hands of powerful men in the New York City theater world and the aftermath of violence. In 2011, college student Jonah Keller's preacher father forces him into gay conversion therapy, and Jonah flees his home in Illinois for New York City, where he hopes to become a writer. There, he works as a waiter and meets Pulitzer-winning playwright Richard Shriver, and is thrilled to receive continued attention via text messages ("Daddy could be my new drug," thinks Jonah, in between bumps of cocaine during a shift). Just months into their relationship, Richard invites Jonah to stay at his compound in the Hamptons for the summer. Jonah is thrilled, yet after arriving he notices the young, handsome gay waiters in Richard's employ are speckled with bruises, and considers leaving after receiving a warning from one of them. Then Richard manipulates Jonah into staying, and Jonah is raped by Richard and his friends. The final act, which finds Jonah working as a magazine writer in 2017, adds some depth as Jonah processes how he handled the abuse. Unfortunately, Parks-Ramage's frantic pacing and thin characters leave little breathing room, making Jonah's reckoning difficult to connect with. Despite the explosive material, this ends up fizzling. Agent: PJ Mark, Janklow & Nesbit Assoc. (May)

(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Review by Kirkus Book Review

A young gay writer's dream relationship turns into an abusive nightmare. Parks-Ramage's emotionally complex debut is narrated by Jonah, a young New Yorker determined to forget his oppressive, conservative upbringing. As Jonah was growing up in suburban Illinois, his pastor father forced him into gay conversion therapy, which only motivated him to escape the Midwest. But Gotham has left him broke and stalled his post--MFA dreams of becoming a playwright. Lonely, needy, and a touch scheming, he insinuates himself with Richard, a wealthy and accomplished gay playwright. Richard draws Jonah into his inner circle, inviting him for a stay at his Hamptons compound. It soon becomes clear, though, that Jonah is just one of numerous handsome and exploitable young men Richard has deceitfully roped into a form of indentured servitude; humiliations abound, from violent, bullying rages to drug-induced rape. When Richard is finally brought to trial, as we learn in the prologue, Jonah is too frightened to follow through on his plan to testify against him. It seems at first that Parks-Ramage has given the plot away early, but the closing chapters deepen the story, not just about Richard, but about Jonah's struggle to deal with multiple betrayals and abuses along with his callowness. The novel's title most directly refers to Jonah and Richard's sub-dom relationship, but it's also concerned with multiple father figures and their power dynamics, including Jonah's father and God. Jonah's first-person narration gives the book a confessional feel while his shifts to second person, addressing another of Richard's victims, add a note of regret and complicity. "The things we worship eat us alive," Richard says at one point, and the novel smartly showcases just how corrosive idolatry is. A well-formed coming-of-age story, both erotic and chilling. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

2011: Prologue You asked me to be a witness in the trial.      I owed you my life and so I said yes.      What does one wear to a rape testimony? Your lawyer and I debated this endlessly. Nothing too tight, nothing too baggy, nothing too ratty, nothing too expensive, something sexless yet attractive, a suit jacket perhaps, but nothing flashy, a light navy was best, black was too morbid, too dark. I wanted to seem serious but not angry, definitely not vengeful; maybe glasses were a good idea, but the frames had to be simple, nothing flamboyant, nothing too gay, nothing that might trigger juror prejudice. Something to wear while the world decided if I had been raped.      Something that said: Believe me.      I dreaded our rehearsals for the witness stand. Your lawyer's endless questions. What did the basement look like? How many men? What did they do to you? I never slept, barely ate. Walked through the world a husk, disconnected from my body. Pain was the only thing that cut the numbness. I picked the skin around my fingernails with my teeth, tasting the blood on my tongue, repeating the process until all my digits were crusted in scabs.      Finally, the day of the trial arrived.      When I saw Richard in the courtroom, I snapped. He was a nightmare brought to life, sitting stone-faced with his team of defense attorneys. I recognized the fury in his eyes--I'd seen it before, of course--and I felt his rage burn a hole in my back as I walked up to take the stand. The courtroom shifted its attention toward me, expecting me to tell the story I'd told only three people--you, your lawyer, and my mother. Expecting me to explain my private hell in a public forum.      "When did you first meet Richard Shriver?" your lawyer asked when I was settled.      It was the simplest question of all, one we'd rehearsed and rehearsed during our months of prep. But staring at Richard, I suddenly forgot my lines. I clenched my fists and closed my eyes, praying that when I opened them, this would all be over, and the trial would dissipate like the edges of a bad acid trip. When my eyelids at last fluttered wide, I saw your lawyer's stricken face.      "Perhaps you didn't hear the question," he said, straining to keep an even tone. "I asked, when did you first meet Richard Shriver?"      My mouth refused to move.      "Jonah, do you need a minute?"      Nothing.      "Jonah, when did you first meet Richard Shriver?"      "In 2009," I finally managed, my voice dry and timid. Relief softened his expression. We had returned to our script.      "And what was the nature of your relationship?"      "I . . . I guess he was my boyfriend."      "But that relationship changed over time, did it not?"      Again, silence.      "Jonah?"      Panic lifted me out of my body. My consciousness floated by the ceiling fan. I clenched my fists tighter, clenched them until the scabs cracked and seeped blood. "I . . . don't know."      Your lawyer frowned. Richard's features shifted as well, assembling into a strange expression of pleasure. A familiar postcoital grin.      "But it did change, didn't it?"      "Richard . . ." I trailed off.      "Yes, Jonah?"      "Richard loved me," I blurted out, surprising everyone, including myself. Whispers rippled through the courtroom. Your lawyer returned to your side for a hushed consultation.      "No further questions, Your Honor," he said finally.       This is how I survive, I thought. By withholding my story.      How could anyone attempt to discredit a testimony that didn't exist? How could the press exploit the absence of a story? At worst, I would be cast as a malfunctioning witness, a minor character in the larger drama of the trial. A blip in Richard's history. A Wikipedia footnote.      Richard was now smiling in my direction. It was the same smile he'd used when he told me he loved me, the smile that kept me by his side, the smile that had once promised me a world beyond my own. Richard's attorney stood for cross-examination. His eyes shone with Christmas-morning joy. I was a gift ready to be torn open.      "You say you loved Richard?"      "Yes."      "And he was your boyfriend?"      "Yes."      "And did he abuse you?"      "No."      Even better than withholding my story: creating a new one. And I could, if I did enough Olympian-level mental gymnastics, believe it to be true. Here, with all these people as witnesses, I could say that Richard did not abuse me. And if a whole room of people believed it was true, then maybe the media would believe it as well, and if the media believed, then maybe the whole world would believe. And if the whole world believed that I had not been raped, then maybe that would be enough. Maybe that would make it true.      "Did he rape you?"      "No," I said, avoiding your gaze.      "Did he abuse anyone else during the course of your relationship?"      "No," I said, watching my answer register on the faces in the crowd.      "So you never witnessed Richard Shriver or anyone else rape, sexually assault, or abuse anyone."      "No," I said. Adrenaline stung my spine.      "Why, then, would your friend here accuse Richard of these horrific crimes?"      "For the money."      "How can you be sure?"      "Because he told me himself."      "No further questions, Your Honor."      That was it. I was left alone on the stand. Free to go. With my new truth. My new identity. No longer a victim. No longer a tragedy. I was Jonah, reborn.      Then I snuck a glance in your direction, saw you sobbing in your lawyer's arms. Suddenly, the entire lie collapsed as quickly as I had built it. I knew that what I'd done was irreversible, that justice had not been served, that I had ruined your life and my own. I hesitated, unable to pry my cracked fingertips from my chair. I wanted to rush toward you, explain everything. Beg for forgiveness.      But all I could do was stand and exit the courtroom. Excerpted from Yes, Daddy by Jonathan Parks-Ramage All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.