Daddy Issues
Stories
Published on 30. September 2025
Book
Paperback/Softback
156 pages
978-1-4962-4358-4 (ISBN)
Description
Winner of the Barbara DiBernard Prize in Fiction
Daddy Issues is a collection of moving and complex-yet simply and directly told-stories of queer Asian American experiences in Los Angeles. In many of these stories, the protagonists are artists and writers and other creative thinkers living on the fringe of survival, attempting to align a life of the imagination with the practical considerations of career, income, and family: a gay father who hasn't come out to his young son; a social worker, numbed by the destitution of his clients, who finds himself lost in self-destruction; a trans man who returns home to a father with dementia to help his family pack as they are pushed out by gentrification; a husband who can only stand aside as his wife heals from a miscarriage; and a broke writer who learns to love his stories again.
The stories in Daddy Issues offer different contemplations on solitude-the good and the bad of it. Ultimately, this collection by Eric C. Wat is full of hope, and it shows how we can find the connections we need once we allow ourselves to become vulnerable.
Daddy Issues is a collection of moving and complex-yet simply and directly told-stories of queer Asian American experiences in Los Angeles. In many of these stories, the protagonists are artists and writers and other creative thinkers living on the fringe of survival, attempting to align a life of the imagination with the practical considerations of career, income, and family: a gay father who hasn't come out to his young son; a social worker, numbed by the destitution of his clients, who finds himself lost in self-destruction; a trans man who returns home to a father with dementia to help his family pack as they are pushed out by gentrification; a husband who can only stand aside as his wife heals from a miscarriage; and a broke writer who learns to love his stories again.
The stories in Daddy Issues offer different contemplations on solitude-the good and the bad of it. Ultimately, this collection by Eric C. Wat is full of hope, and it shows how we can find the connections we need once we allow ourselves to become vulnerable.
Reviews / Votes
"Unstinting and deep, Daddy Issues roils the mirror surfaces of our days with cutting candor and intense, unexpected compassion. Eric Wat's characters body forth revelatory insight as they emerge from marginalization into hard fought light."-Sesshu Foster, author of Atomik Aztex "In Daddy Issues Eric C. Wat has written a collection of short stories as profound as they are humorous. In doing so, he deftly challenges conventions while illuminating the resilience of the human spirit. Wat's intricate storytelling and vivid prose offers us an unvarnished examination of love, loss, longing, and the ties that bind us to one another. An absolutely essential addition to contemporary literature."-Alex Espinoza, author of The Sons of El Rey "These stories capture, with insight, humor, and tenderness, what it feels like to have issues of various kinds, to look at oneself squarely and change. There are no heroes here (though perhaps an antihero or two). One walks into an Eric C. Wat story as if into a room where everyone is trying to stay alive, a room filled with quotidian surfaces and charged, transformational depths. Wat's multigenerational, cross-cultural stories explore the often-tangled perils and pleasures of trust, vulnerability, silence, sacrifice, and love."-Jennifer Tseng, author of Mayumi and the Sea of Happiness and Thanks for Letting Us Know You Are Alive "Set against the vibrant yet gritty backdrop of Los Angeles, these stories bring to life the inner worlds of characters who seek-and sometimes stumble upon-meaningful connections. Artists, writers, and everyday Angelenos alike face the thrilling, precarious dance of closeness and longing, each choice reverberating with humor, heartbreak, and revelation. Intelligent without pretense, Daddy Issues captures a nuanced portrait of LA's mosaic of lives on the edge of change, for anyone who has known the precarious business of intimacy."-Steven Reigns, author of A Quilt for David and InheritanceMore details
Series
Language
English
Place of publication
Lincoln
United States
Product notice
Paperback (trade)
Dimensions
Height: 225 mm
Width: 155 mm
Thickness: 10 mm
Weight
240 gr
ISBN-13
978-1-4962-4358-4 (9781496243584)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Person
Eric C. Wat is the author of Love Your Asian Body: AIDS Activism in Los Angeles, winner of the 2023 Outstanding Achievement in History Award from the Association of Asian American Studies; the novel SWIM, a Los Angeles Times bestseller; and The Making of a Gay Asian Community: An Oral History of Pre-AIDS Los Angeles. He works as an independent consultant for nonprofit organizations and philanthropic foundations.
Content
Acknowledgments
This Business of Death
Sober (wtf)
Duffel Bag
Ramparts
Natural Law
The Lady in the Moon
Twelve Steps
A Boy Named Sue
Daddy Issues
This Business of Death
Sober (wtf)
Duffel Bag
Ramparts
Natural Law
The Lady in the Moon
Twelve Steps
A Boy Named Sue
Daddy Issues