This is a tremendously good memoir, written with great tenderness and compassion, but also imbued with both rage and forgiveness. That's a fine balance, which not every writer could pull of, but Alan Cumming does. He's known as an actor, but I wasn't especially familiar with his work - on TV he's best known for The Good Wife, but he's done a lot of theatrical Shakespeare in the US and the UK. Alan's brutal father dominates the book, but it's much more than a misery memoir, as Alan pursues the mystery of his maternal grandfather, Tommy Darling, and his disappearance and death in Malaya after WW2. He chronicles the filming of an episode of Who Do You Think You Are? in which he pursues this story in alternating chapters with his memories of his childhood, and reflections on the meaning of it all. Neil Gaiman describes the book as 'Equal parts memoir, whodunnit and manual for living'. It's compelling, moving, very honest, and beautifully written. Read it!