Robert Mitchum – aka ‘Mr Bad Taste’, ‘Trouble Himself’, ‘The Man with the Immoral Face’, ‘Daddy Bad’ – was the original Hollywood bad-boy and one of the greatest screen actors of the twentieth century. But his pre-fame life is cloaked in mystery, the truth hidden within conflicting tales of time spent as a Depression-era hobo, prizefighter, escaped felon – and secret poet.

Writer and broadcaster lloyd robson trailed the Eastern Seaboard in search of Mitchum, his poetry, America, a surrogate father, and how to be a man. Oh Dad! is the result – a boozy, drugfuelled attempt to define masculinity in the modern age and to match the standards set by the ultimate man and the personification of Film Noir, Robert Mitchum.

A bizarre hybrid of autobiography, biography and film history, Lloyd Robson's novel has him searching for his own masculinity across America using Robert Mitchum as his touchstone. He attempts to reconcile Mitchum's rabble rousing macho persona with his poetry writing and apply it to his own life. A curate's egg of a novel, this is peppered with great quotes and insights into Mitchum. Robson's own journey often disappears into weary self indulgence, but still remains intriguing.
Buzz Magazine May 2008

Robson's road tripping and painfully honest prose draw tangential parallels to Jack Kerouac and the Beat Generation penmen. Redhanded

...plenty of pleasingly uncompromising turns of profane phrase ... a suitably drunken self-loathing mess worth immersing yourself in. Adam Kennedy

ISBN 978 1905762 132

£9.99