All-American boy : a gay son's search for his father / Scott Peck.

"A survivor's tale that in its universal appeal brings to mind the most compelling aspects of "Gal" and "Shot in the Heart." Through the course of these scathing, inspiring, instructive pages, Scott Peck, writer and human being, grows into one hell of a terrific man."--Michael Dorris.

Reviews (4)

Publisher's Weekly Review

In this searing, fragmentary memoir of a young gay man coming to terms with his sexuality, the author writes movingly of his relationship with his largely absent father, Marine and Vietnam veteran Colonel Fred Peck, whose views on homosexuality made national headlines in 1993. Appearing at a Senate hearing on Clinton's proposal to rescind the military's ban on homosexuality, the colonel testified he had just learned that his son was gay and that he loved and respected him, but added emphatically, ``There is no place in the military for him.'' The author, raised by his deeply religious mother and by a violently abusive, alcoholic, gay-hating stepfather, was filled with self-loathing and guilt as a closeted youth. He blamed his homosexuality on his father, who divorced his mother upon his return from Vietnam and remarried, and whom his son worshipped from afar. Peck's intense narrative describes his mother's struggle with terminal cancer, his desertion of a Florida Bible academy where he studied to become a fundamentalist minister, his furtive affairs, his coming out and his reconciliation with his father despite their diametrically opposite views on gay service in the military. Photos. (Mar.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved

Kirkus Review

An absorbing memoir of a tormented upbringing in the fundamentalist Christian South. The author made headlines as a college student in 1993 when his father, Marine Col. Fred Peck, testified before Congress that, although he loved his gay son, there was ""no place in the military for him."" In his first book, Peck gives a scrupulously honest account of what led to this episode: the intermeshed processes of his break with conservative Christianity and acceptance of his sexuality. He thrusts us into violence and confusion at the start, telling of his vicious stepfather, his real father's mysterious absence, and the frigid Calvinism of his maternal grandparents, shared in part by his mother. Peck attended fundamentalist schools, and before he was ten he was aware of his attraction to other boys, a trait that everyone he knew considered an abomination. For a brief time he joined a charismatic group that encouraged speaking in tongues, providing him with a means of masked self-expression. He reunited intermittently with the father who existed only as a photographic ideal throughout his early childhood; his attempts to define this relationship were compromised until finally he came out to Dad on the eve of the Congressional hearings about gays in the military. Peck avoids polemical argument against fundamentalist beliefs: He recalls without rancor (but, unfortunately, with somewhat overwrought rhetoric) his adolescent attempts to immerse himself in religion while harboring his secret, and he treats his nemeses fairly--even his terrifying grandmother. He never lectures, either about gay activism or about gays in the military. Instead, he negotiates the story of his emotional coming-of-age with a relentless candor that underscores the excruciatingly repressive effects of bigoted dogma and the bravery needed to surmount them. With vivid expressiveness, Peck charts a particularly hazardous passage of self-discovery. Copyright ©Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

Booklist Review

The autobiography of someone under 30 is a little hard to credit, but Peck certainly has a story to tell: he has endured physical abuse from his mother's boyfriend, estrangement from and reconciliation with his biological father, the death of his mother, and the pain and relief that accompanied coming-out as gay to friends and family. And then there's his relationship with his father, Colonel Fred Peck, which made the front pages and morning talk shows when the colonel told a congressional committee that although his gay son was intelligent and trustworthy, he opposed admitting Scott to military service. Father and son disagree on this, yet they respect each other; indeed, Scott and his lover are welcome guests in the colonel's home. Peck, former editor of the University of Maryland student newspaper, writes very well, and that fact, along with the interest added by the gays-in-the-military controversy and the struggle to reconcile religious beliefs with homosexual orientation that figured in his coming-out, make his story especially good reading and a commendable addition for most libraries. Charles Harmon

Library Journal Review

All-American Boy is the poignant memoir of a boy in search of himself and the father he never knew. The author was thrust into the media spotlight during 1993 Congressional hearings to overturn the ban on gays in the military. Scott's father, Col. Fred Peck, revealed in testimony before the Senate Armed Services Committee that he had just learned of his son's homosexuality. Despite his love for Scott, he insisted that there was no place for gays in the armed forces. In countless interviews following his father's testimony, Scott spoke about his opposing beliefs concerning gays in the military and how he came out to his parents. Now, two years later, the author candidly discusses his search for Colonel Peck, who abandoned him as a young boy; a merciless childhood at the hands of an abusive stepfather; a strict fundamentalist upbringing; and eventual self-reconciliation. A thought-provoking chronicle for all libraries. [Previewed in Prepub Alert, LJ 11/15/94.]-Michael A. Lutes, Univ. of Notre Dame Lib., Ind. (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

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