Daddy Boy

by Emerson Whitney

In 2017, Emerson Whitney was divorcing the woman they'd been with for ten years – a dominatrix they called Daddy. Living in a tent in the backyard of their marital home, Emerson was startled to realize they didn't know what it meant to be an adult. "We often look to our gender roles as a sort of map for aging," they write. "I wanted to know what the process looked like without that: not man-ness, not-woman-ness." Dizzied by this realization, they turned to an activity steeped in stereotypical masculinity: storm chasing.

Daddy Boy follows Emerson as they pack into a van with a rag-tag group of storm chasers and drive up and down tornado alley – from Texas to North Dakota – staying in motels and eating at gas stations and hunting down storms like so many white whales.

In heading with them to Texas, we return, too, to the only site of adulthood Emerson has ever known: their childhood. Interspersed throughout this trip are memories of dad – both Emerson's stepdad, Hank, present and unflinching and extremely Texan; and their biological dad, who they hardly knew. With his cowboy hats and random girlfriends, he always seemed so sweet and lost.

Through these childhood vignettes, coupled with queer theory and weeks spent reading the clouds like oracles, wanting nothing more than to drive straight into the eye of a storm, Emerson frames these probing questions of manhood against the dusty, loaded background of the American West.

Genres: Queer, Nonfiction, Memoir, LGBT, Transgender, Gender, Adult

184 pages, Hardcover

First published June 27, 2023

About the author

Emerson Whitney is the author of the poetry title Ghost Box (Timeless Infinite Light, 2014). Emerson teaches in the BFA creative writing program at Goddard College and is the Dana and David Dornsife Teaching Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of Southern California.

Reviews

[Maggie Dunleavy · Rating 4 out of 5]

I tore through this book in 2 days and really enjoyed it. It’s kind of giving Maggie Nelson meets Eula Biss (in a good way) and the personal & referential wove together in a way that was pleasing 2 me. In particular the authors little meditations on transness sparkled for me and echoed my own experiences in a way that felt very special. I thought Whitney just did a great job with this one! I reccomend it :~)

[Gee]

I made it like halfway but didnt finish bc it was Maggie’s library copy and they needed to return it because they couldn’t check out any more books. i was enjoying it but not really that gripped by it as evidenced by the fact that its short and i couldn’t finish it. i liked the storm stuff and some of the author’s writing was good. but honestly i don’t really like reading books in which a bottom unpacks how much they are a bottom. im looking at you maggie nelson. like poetry—and like bottoming—unpacking one’s bottomhood on the page is easy to phone in and hard to do really well. as for me i just don’t care. go get railed its not that deep. anne carson i am NOT talking to you baby you keep doing your thing.

[Ronnie Hyana · Rating 3 out of 5]

Mesoebene ggü. domme Partnerin =?= Makroebene ggü. Naturgewalten

Es war wie ein introspektives Journal einer Person zu lesen, die ich nicht kenne. Als würde die Person selbst versuchen, das alles zu ordnen und zu verstehen. Und dann wieder ganz viel Reisejournal eines wichtigen und unaufregenden stormchasing Trips. Viele Szenen, manche nachvollziehbar, die Charaktere nicht ganz greifbar, irgendwie losgelöst von den Gedanken. Vielleicht haben die damit auch nicht so viel zu tun. Spannung zwischen Platz suchen und Platz zugewiesen bekommen. Ganz viel wurde nur kurz angeschnitten, wie um es nicht zu vergessen, worüber ich aber gerne alles gelesen hätte. Ich hätte gerne in den Kopf der Person geleuchtet, um alles nicht geschriebene zu sehen.
Hat mich aber dazu gebracht mir YouTube Videos von Tornados anzuschauen.

Muffin: sie wusste nicht, was mit dir im Bett anzufangen war. Genauer: 'she just misread your masculinity for dominance. Common problem.'

[Sally Elhennawy · Rating 4 out of 5]

“Does anyone else’s childhood wash them like this?” UGH this book was feverish and spellbinding I am so happy to have read it!!

[Andreas · Rating 2 out of 5]

I wasn’t able to finish 100 pages of this book on a two hour flight during which I had nothing else to do - that’s proof enough of how much of a chore this book was to read. I was really excited for this book because storm chasing is super interesting, and I’m always here for trans men & transmasc people exploring gender, sexuality, and family history. I liked his thoughts on weather & his occasional thoughts on gender, but the way the book was written was just infuriating. It jumps around constantly - each paragraph is often a completely separate thought - it has no linearity at all, often not even on a single page. I genuinely hate this style of writing - it’s exhausting and serves no purpose other than to appear “artistic”. Massive disappointment.

Edited to add: I was looking at the blurb again and realised that the author never answered the question “did he want to be daddy now”. We see snippets of his relationship with Jo, but we don’t really see what Emerson wants from a relationship in the future, or why he’s really unhappy in the relationship beyond a vague desire for more flexibility. The more I think about this book the more frustrating it is

[Isaac Badger · Rating 4 out of 5]

Love me a book of queer rambling

[Sam Albert · Rating 4 out of 5]

A completely original memoir with a tenderness towards history, heritage, family, and love that rivals the greatest non-fiction writers alive today. Whitney sold me on storm chasing as a generative new creative endeavour but alas, I do not share the same affinity for the Unite States as he does and therefore anytime I want to experience the ontological thrill of watching a tornado form over a Midwest horizon, I’ll just have to re-visit this book!

From Glasgow to San Francisco, I can’t believe I actually found and now own this book tbh

[Courtney Boal · Rating 3 out of 5]

Strange book that had a lot of weirdly profound rambling mixed with what felt like the author going off track before finding themselves again. Kinda reads like the author is sat reminiscing and someone is jotting what they say down word for word while they try to sort out their thoughts. Interesting look into sexuality, masculinity and how your childhood can shape everything about you though

[Aimee · Rating 5 out of 5]

It’s giving Maggie Nelson’s The Argonauts. It’s giving Allison Bechdel’s Fun Home. It’s giving Carmen Maria Machado’s Fun Home. I bloody loved this. At the end of Emerson Whitney’s marriage, he reconnects with his life passion - weather. Discussing gender, sexuality, masculinity, violence, and the idea of submission (full body, emotional, to the natural world), this memoir flits through vignettes of his life, childhood, and a bizarre two-week storm-chasing trip that never quite lands. It’s brilliant. Allowing the self to grow, but also be taken by the waves, and changing winds, of life. It’s brutal, it’s powerful, and it’s thought provoking. I can’t wait to read Heaven. Fantastic.

[Gabriela Oprea · Rating 3 out of 5]

the first 50 pages made me think this was going to be one of my favourite books of the year, I loved the writing, the insights and the mix of memoir and queer theory. the storm chasing was completely uninteresting to me and I felt like it was used as a buffer in order not to go to deep into the two relationships that I felt were central i.e. Jo and Hank, under the pretense that it was an artistic choice.

also the portrayal of violence against animals and animal deaths were unnecessary.

[Blue Reinhard · Rating 5 out of 5]

the metaphors in this book went beyond comparing one thing to another thing. rather, the metaphors placed two things in relation to each other, drawing out their similarities in such unexpected, abstract, visceral ways that new truths could emerge in a type of knowledge that is bodily and revelatory. amazing amazing amazing book

[chris Meadowcroft · Rating 3 out of 5]

Took a while to get into!!

Struggled with the style at times

Seemed to lose its track of d/s and desire which is what the blurb claimed was it's whole shtick.

Really enjoyed some descriptions and portrayals of relationships tho (Hank & storm chasers specifically!)

[thebookwasbetter · Rating 2 out of 5]

2.5 stars! I’m not sure if this story just went completely over my head but I just didn’t love it … maybe it’s just not for me! The parts that explored sexuality and masculinity and femininity were lovely, but I couldn’t really get into the storm chasing aspects of it. I also felt like it was a little all over the place and difficult to follow.

[Flungoutofspace (Chris) · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of the rare books I know I’ll reread.

[sawyer · Rating 4 out of 5]

i love a good book of queer bdsm, storm chasing, and pushing against assimilation

[KileyV · Rating 3 out of 5]

What seemed like a Very Kiley book ended up leaving me wanting. Wanting more about what I thought was supposed to be the thesis theme: growing up & desiring autonomy. But it was a lot about storms and shitty childhood memories.

[Jenn]

FREE FROM THE SHACKLES OF THIS BOOK

[Dean · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book dragged in some places but overall I liked it a lot and thought the storm chasing was interesting and his reflections on submission in relation to relational dynamics and gender were a relatable, stimulating, and rich space to wade around in.

I like the mediations on how he got to a point in his life where surrendering complete control was in part, or largely, a response to having to always have been in control and make decisions as a result of his tumultuous and unstable childhood and adolescence and how that need to be baby and to be cared for translated not only to bedroom dynamics, his overall relationship dynamics with Jo, and his own embodiment of masculinity.

It’s really interesting how he relates being submissive, passive, and relinquishing control with his transness. He seems to associate his submissiveness and willingness to give up control as a way of embodying a boyhood in his 20s that he had not gotten to experience as a child - both in relation to being trans and his unstable childhood. But that’s all changing now that he’s in his 30s, and he is grappling what it means and how it looks to transition into manhood - which, for him, is manifesting as a desire to take more control and have more agency in his life and in his relationships (e.g., his desire to be daddy in his relationships) - albeit in a more gentle way than is laid out in traditional cis and heteronormative scripts for masculinity. There are some really poignant passages about how that’s hard to do without trans elders to provide “a map” of a way to exist as you grow out of boyhood/early transition into manhood/ established(?) transition.

So there is not only a reckoning with the role he plays sexually and relationally but what that means for his gender identity as he tries to forge ahead into manhood without the toxicness of the scripts that have been laid out for him.

I appreciate his reflections on how disorienting it is to have that desire to take that control back, to be a person with agency who makes decisions for themselves, and who takes the lead with others after having built the foundation of your adult life on relinquishing control and following others’ lead. And I also appreciate his reflections on how it’s re-embodying albeit clumsy as he’s learning to flex those muscles again because he’s been relying on someone else to tell him what to do, what to eat, how to fuck, and how to live for so long.

But he also recognises the duality of the process - as much as it is clumsy and disorienting, it’s also so exciting to wade through this new part of yourself - the desires and how you interact with people - even when it costs you the foundation that you’ve relied on for so long (in this case his relationship with Jo which was untenable once the role he wants to play in the dynamic shifted).

“My girlfriend changed my name to daddy in their phone today and I honestly don’t know what to tell you, except I’m on an adventure”

“The whole reason I was in the tent was because I’d begun to want things. I’d never let myself want before. […] Out of nowhere, I’d begun wanting to pull a person towards my pelvis, to watch my arms flex while I did it. I wanted to feel someone else in my hands. The switch wasn’t allowed in my relationship. This is why we started hating each other.”

I also thought the passages about Hank were especially tender and sweet, even though they were laced with a sense of pain, alienation, and at times abandonment. But I like how through and through Hank always came back around, showed up for him, and made space to be his Dad.

[Diana Arterian · Rating 5 out of 5]

I wrote about Whitney's new propulsive hybrid memoir in LitHub:

Emerson Whitney’s first hybrid memoir, Heaven, circles largely around a question he poses relatively late in the book: “Who was mothered like they wanted to be?” What this includes is his relationship with his mother (flushed with love, fraught, downright toxic at times), his wonderful grandmother, as well as notions of femininity, womanhood, and what that all means when you’re a trans person.

Heaven is remarkable in how Whitney easily describes a situation from a child’s perspective (a coke addict looking for crumbs “the kind of guy who cared about carpet. I’d catch him on all fours, pulling particles out”) and a few pages later dip into the French theorist Luce Irigaray’s notions of “femininity” with such facility it all is clearly part of the same conversation.

Daddy Boy, Whitney’s memoir just published by McSweeney’s, like Heaven, looks closely at his past with family, particularly the fathers, and the impact on Whitney’s present. This is in conjunction with Whitney’s imploding marriage to a domme whom he calls “Daddy,” and Whitney’s decision to chase tornadoes as a means for escape.

Cameron Finch at The Rumpus writes, “Where Heaven interrogated femininity and motherhood, Whitney recalls the Daddy figures in Daddy Boy—his adoptive father, his biological dad, his dominatrix lover—who cut shapes throughout his life.” In an interview with Finch there, Whitney pins this down further: “Instead of defining the word Daddy, the hope is to take Daddy off of what we associate it with, which is man-ness. What could Daddy be? What is man-ness without Daddy?”

As in Heaven, Whitney continues to operate in a hybrid mode, including brief vignettes that, like a spell, make everything else fall away. The immediacy he conjures holds you still so you won’t miss anything. The subtle on- and off-ramps around these moments make it almost impossible to excerpt. As an example, at one point Whitney talks about his “favorite weather memories,” and describes about how power outages suddenly brought people together who otherwise were physically or emotionally absent.

He writes, “I remember my biological dad and I once playing with a Lite-Brite during a power outage. He was somewhere behind me and I was making those colored lights into a dog or something and then the power was out and he was suddenly there… Do you get what I’m saying? I fell in love with this feeling.”

[Mediaman · Rating 1 out of 5]

Zero stars--horrible book, poorly written, confusing and often making no sense. This should not have been published.

Everyone seems to think they have a story to tell, especially those in underrepresented groups in the LGBTQ community. But in order to publish something worth reading, the author needs to learn how to write a cohesive narrative, include details that add to the reader's interest, and draw conclusions beyond simplistic stereotypes. None of those criteria are met here.

This appears to be released to positively represent the trans community and those involved in BDSM, but instead it makes everyone look bad. It also seems to promote and commercialize a named website that the author uses to buy dildos.

Pronouns are mixed in such a way that you have no idea who the author is writing about. Why do progressives think it's important to allow a woman to be called "he" or a man to be called "they"? That makes it almost impossible to discern in scenes who is doing the talking. When are we going to agree on returning to real science and standard grammar for accurate truth instead of thinking it's okay to publish misinformation?

Sadly, in addition to the now-typical line that names or identifying details have been altered and composites intentionally made (turning the book into creative fiction), this is included in the back of the book: "Daddy Boy was written via recollection and all inaccuracies, including any meteorological or geographical errors, are purposefully left uncorrected." HUH? He KNOWS there are errors in the book but he chooses to print falsehoods?

How can one believe anything from any writers, much less a trans author, when they admit upfront that the truth is worthless and inaccuracies are intentionally included?

Odd that everything else in the book can be fictionalized but the real dildo-selling company is named and very much online.

Fire whoever greenlit this manuscript and published this nonsense. Emerson Whitney should be embarrassed and find a different daddy because he's a bad boy.

[Bronte Teale · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a book (?memoir) about a trans man, married to a dominatrix, who is going through a divorce and decides to go on a storm chasing tour, which becomes the setting for them to contemplate their complicated familial relationships and the lasting impact of their childhood trauma.

This was a pretty easy read, particularly because I let a lot of the disjointed paragraphs and digressions just wash over me, and it was enjoyable enough for the most part. It is not, however, a novel. I didn’t really feel that the central question posed by the blurb (Did HE want to be Daddy now?) was really followed through, again, because this isn’t really a novel.

I also can’t deal with being smacked over the head with lessons. I eye rolled in parts, for example:
“…He argues that with our “Global Ocean Observing System and our ever improving dynamic models” we’re going to solve all the mysteries and be good to go. I hate the idea, honestly. I’m so tired of the colonial idea that we can know it all, capture it, figure it out, this framework both hurts and exhausts me.”

Like, does it really? I dunno. Memoir cum autofiction is just getting a bit out of hand.

[Matt · Rating 4 out of 5]

This might be the second trans memoir I've read, after Janet Mock's first book. It's fair to say that the S and M elements of this one make it a different kind of book, but then, that's baked in, too.

The conceit-- trans man looking for companionship and a replacement, of a sort, for his domme, by driving around chasing tornadoes, is wild enough. But the book, which cuts together some different timelines (Emerson as a kid; Emerson with his ex-wife, etc) with some extremely in-the-moment reading, makes this a dynamic reading experience.

I'm not sure it always works-- there are threads that get dropped and, as far as I could tell, never quite returned to. There's a decent amount of Whitney's reading in gender theory dropped in here, as a couple paragraphs and some reflection. I didn't hate it, but I also kind of wished it was more blended in: the book isn't super-interested in interrupting the narrator's voice with other voices, so this irruption didn't quite fit for me.

Still, this is a fun and exciting at times read, and I'd definitely read Whitney again.

[Allie Macintire · Rating 5 out of 5]

THERE’S ENORMOUS ENERY STORED IN THE ATMOSPHERE.

When Whitney finds himself at the end of his marriage, he finds new direction in and dominance from a storm chasing tour advertised online. Just like his relationship that he explains shaped him in some truth, storms provide Whitney with an embrace similar to a mother’s presence. “A storm envelops like a mom…”

As Whitney describes his quirky surroundings and company as a storm chaser, he dives into topics of his life such as childhood trauma, sex and gender, fatherhood, and ideas of love/ dominance. This book taught me a lot about myself, especially at this point in my life as I begin to address trauma more consciously. Through the laughs and gut wrenching honesty, I remembered why McSweeney’s is my favorite publishing company; because they always showcase the rawest stories!!

I call this book a “coming-of-power” story and suggest it to all!! It’s probably my new favorite and it has inspired me to write again.

Thank you, Emerson Whitney!

[Michael Doane · Rating 5 out of 5]

Daddy Boy is a raw, insightful, and profoundly original memoir that interrogates identity, adulthood, and masculinity through the lens of queer experience. Emerson Whitney takes readers on a vivid journey across Tornado Alley, blending storm-chasing adventures with intimate recollections of family and fatherhood. The narrative is both daring and reflective, weaving together queer theory, personal history, and the unpredictable power of nature to explore what it means to grow into oneself outside traditional gender expectations.

Whitney’s prose is sharp, evocative, and deeply personal, allowing readers to inhabit the tension between societal norms and self discovery. By framing questions of manhood against the backdrop of the American West, Daddy Boy transforms a physical journey into a rich exploration of identity, legacy, and the forces that shape who we are. This is a memoir that resonates on both emotional and intellectual levels, offering a fresh perspective on growing up, breaking molds, and confronting personal and cultural expectations.

Michael

[neen · Rating 2 out of 5]

I think I would have liked it if I had meshed with the stylistic prose. I enjoyed the academic references but I’m an individual who consumes content quickly and ravenously and that’s more of a comment on my character and abilities rather than the integrity and character of the novel. Sometimes the symbolism was so abstract and the plot not necessarily slow but heavily reliant on the mundane of the present that can or could be or profound that it just left me distracted and wanting more. I also was just confused on the familial timeline of the author, which may have been a conscious stylistic choice, but I found myself frantically flipping back to pages making a lunatic style chart to make sure I understood their history. Maybe some weren’t disoriented as I was and it probably didn’t help that I read this on vacation while sunburnt and slightly tipsy so I take full responsibility. In short, I wish I could have connected with and loved this piece in the ways I anticipated but I’m assuming these expectations acted as more of a hinderance, which makes me sad.

[Amari · Rating 2 out of 5]

I find it very hard to rate this book...

I love the idea of the story and some parts and statements really touched me. I love how there a subtle bits about the life of a trans person, and how vulnerable some bits are. There are moments where it feels like there is a deeper story between the lines. And I see how much work went into telling this story.

But..
The way it's written just didn't catch my attention. I needed 100 pages to get used to the style of writing. There are no chapters and sometimes it felt like I missed parts. This book made me feel lost sometimes. I feel like the references were very Amarican. So I usually had no clue what the writer meant. Even after googling it.

Eventhough I wouldn't recommend it to most people, I think it might hit the perfect spot for a specific group (which I'm unfortunately not).

[F.M Papaz · Rating 4 out of 5]

There are three through lines in this palpable memoir: the Paternal, Storms & Power (or the lack of it; agency, dominance, submission). Emerson Whitney weaves in and out of the central scene of this piece, a storm-chasing tour, into:
flashbacks to memories from across his life (pivotal moments of the text's central relationships)
humorous/interesting anecdotes and tangents
insights on gender theory/discourse
intertextual references ft. Billy the Kid
meteorology
& more!
Whitney asks questions of belonging, of home, comfort in one's own skin. Reading their writing is an exercise in processing much of life at once. There are no neat answers but there is definitely progress and healing to be had in the journey. It's an experience worth partaking in! & is very didactic for a writer to read.

[ZaDavi]

This type of writing—an unstructured, eclectic mix of anecdotes and musings connected to some core themes largely by the author's individual perspective, informed by unique life experiences—is basically impossible to evaluate in terms of "good" or "bad" writing. Daddy Boy often revels in the kind of details that make real life so much less narratively satisfying than fiction, the disappointments and near-misses, the mundane details that relate to no theme and serve no purpose other than verisimilitude. Mostly it's an exploration of the author's personal psychology, self-reflection and introspection. It will feel remarkably insightful to the extent that your own life experience and perspective resemble the authors.

[Caitlyn · Rating 3 out of 5]

I was super stoked to find a book about tornadoes and storm chasing, especially since it is a goal of mine to also go on a tornado tour some day. I appreciated that the book also dealt heavily in gender critique, as it meant I got to read a book about two of my favorite subjects.

Unfortunately the nonlinear writing and lack of clear passage breaks made it very hard to follow the timeline of events. One minute we're in the van chasing a storm, and the next paragraph is suddenly the author as a child.

I also feel very dense because I could not figure out the overall goal of the author in writing this book. I appreciated his analysis on trans identity, masculinity, and sexuality, but it felt like there were multiple stories being told here and none really had a conclusion.

[August · Rating 5 out of 5]

While the non-linear storyline might be hard for some to follow, I loved being brought on an adventure into Emerson's mind to explore a section of his life that is so absurd and relatable at the same time. Emerson took me by the hand and brought me into the world of storm chasing and the world of exploring changing dynamics within a long-term BDSM relationship. Neither are things I've read enough about in any other book! The story flowed like a friend telling me about a whacky adventure - I never knew what was going to happen next but I sure didn't want to go home. Put your assumptions about literary plot lines aside and just let yourself be swooned.