CREATIVE writing professor Chuckberry Pascual veers away from his typical young adult fiction in “Daddy,” a novella that unpacks the connotations of the term through the uncertainties of queer midlife.
The story follows Ryan, a 44-year-old queer man, caught between his sexuality, family, work, and relationships.
Ryan’s flawed, indecisive, and insecure character stems from his stagnation in both career and love life. He often finds himself left behind by younger, more accomplished colleagues and overlooked by potential partners due to his age.
The sense of inadequacy and self-doubt is evident across the novella’s 50 pages. Ryan reluctantly wrestles with the reality of growing older and its impact on his identity and relationships.
Confronted with his circumstances, the queer man’s helplessness totally deepens as he grapples with major dilemmas that come with aging: the loss of desirability and attractiveness, which add up to his anxiety about growing old alone, and the realization that his parents age alongside him.
“Daddy,” published by 19th Avenida Publishing House, also delves into the difficulty in finding genuine love while avoiding the risks of online dating and sexual intimacy as a queer man.
Though the intimate and explicit situations come across as too erotic with Pascual’s use of vivid imagery, the story exposes Ryan’s physical desires and yearning for what it truly means to be a “daddy.” Djenhard Yreneo Raphael Y. Sapanhila
