Novel two · Royce Scratch
My Dad
How I Learned What Not To Be
My Dad follows Carl, Oto’s biological father, across his whole life: a boy playing in the Arizona desert, a young man racing a souped-up ’67 Chevy with Ana beside him, a mechanic, a husband, and a father whose own demons keep pulling him away.
Told in the same short, plain-spoken scenes as Permanent Scars, it traces the on-again, off-again relationship between Carl and Oto, and what a son chooses to carry forward and what he refuses to become. Hanah and Oto return throughout.
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Chapter 8: A Golf Club and Chapter 16: Fishing Trip
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Reader reviews
What readers say
Troy has created a deeply personal and thoughtful story that explores the lasting impact of family, mental illness, and the relationships that shape us. His willingness to examine these themes honestly gives the novel a genuine emotional depth, and the revisions have strengthened both the story and its underlying message.
What I did appreciate throughout this book, is that Oto continued to try to understand and have a connection with his dad, no matter all of the faults he had. Oto seemed to want to hold on mainly to the good times that were shared with him, and forget about the horrible things that his dad did to other people and himself.
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Start with Permanent Scars
Oto’s story, told from inside a Bipolar 1 diagnosis. My Dad stands on its own, but the two books share a family.
About Permanent ScarsFree sample chapters
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