Although we associate short prose with short fiction, A Common Pornography by Kevin Sampsell is a memoir triggered by the death of the author’s father and recounted through miniature scenes from his upbringing. As the title implies, the book details teenage forays into pornography, using porn as a lens through which the author tracks how his father, a troubling figure to say the least, informed his burgeoning sexual desires. Sampsell humorously milks the nauseating but true idea that parents inform our sexuality. He connects the dots between his love of rock music, his early sibling and masculine rivalries, his realizations about the peculiarities of his family, and his first uncomfortable encounters with sex. All of these are awkward but awesome topics and the book is permeated with a punk rock self-assurance pockmarked by teen nerdiness.

Sampsell’s dad’s violent outbursts color many initial short chapters, some of which are only a half-page long. The book’s opening chapter/story, “Washington Street,” sets the tone: “Dad came home and went straight upstairs to the bedroom I shared with my older brother, Matt. ‘I’m going to throw everything into the middle of the street,’ he yelled.” Sampsell doesn't dwell on scenes like this that might seem intended to elicit sympathy and instead uses this violence to illustrate the power each of his six siblings mustered up (over the twenty or so years the book spans) to leave an unpleasant household. Not all of them remain functional, but they all try. The triumph achieved by ditching abusive situations becomes a motif throughout his narratives.
During these moments Sampsell is spot on and his prose is seamless.

In “Spirits,” he describes how fantasy became his mental escape, pitting dissimilar fantasies against each other to unite their message: “At night, in our bedroom, Matt and I would talk about what our spirits were going to do next, and discuss maybe killing off some of our old spirits for new ones…” After showing how this spiritual awakening relates to their passion for Saturday morning wrestling on TV, Sampsell ends on a note that would, out of this context, feel non-sequitur: “That’s when Matt and I began reading books about Bigfoot.” Yet here, after several chapters about male violence, it is easy to comprehend protective solace taken in the idea of a salty wrestlers or giant forest beasts.

Conversely, tales of his siblings confronting life’s hard reality make one feel proud and a little empowered to know that children can sense wrongdoing from miles away. In “Fights,” Sampsell writes about his father: “There were fists thrown, choke holds, objects broken.” But as the kids get older, they begin to fight violence with violence: “…there was a time when Matt got fed up with the fights and decided to do something. He stepped between [mom and dad] and pressed dad against the wall… ‘You’re not going to talk to Mom like that. You’re not going to hit her again.” What reader can resist cheering for such a courageous young boy? The wrestling match fantasy becomes real as the boys become men.