Somehow, I’ve never met Alysia Abbott. She’s lived around the corner from me for more than a decade, in an octagon house set back to allow a most remarkable tree claim space. She’s been to my house, at a party my housemate gave while I was off pedaling somewhere West. Her husband designed a poster that’s framed in my kitchen; one that I lifted from a boarded-up building on the outskirts of SoHo back in the 90’s

I’ve known of Alysia for years. Her memoir, Fairyland, about growing up in San Francisco with a gay dad in the 1980’s, got great press in the mid-2010’s, just before my memoir, Architecture by Moonlight, went straight to the dollar bin. I never read Fairyland. Ostensibly because, twenty years after coming out, I was over reading gay books about San Francisco and AIDS. But really, I was just envious of her success.

A few weeks ago, my housemate mentioned that Fairyland had been made into a movie, streaming on Amazon. Did I want to watch? Not really; envy having a long half-life in my Celtic psyche. But I agreed to watch because, well, at least I have the self-awareness to know when I’m being small.

Fairyland, the movie, is okay. Emilia Jones as Alysia is captivating. Geena Davis as her grandmother is horrid. Scoot McNairy, as Alysia’s father Steve, captures the gently narcissistic gestalt of pre-and post-AIDS San Francisco quite well. Which, as I watched the movie, bothered me more and more.

I have no tolerance for anyone who’s a lousy parent, especially when the parent turns out to be gay. The father in Fun Home, who leaves his children alone at night to go tricking, makes my skin crawl. He gives gay parents a bad rap. Watching Fairyland, I felt that same way about Steve Abbott. Throughout the movie, he drags his daughter to various adult events, leaves her alone too often, and exposes her to random sexual partners too freely. We see Alysia alone, vulnerable, preyed upon by perverts, and saved by strangers when her father ought to be there. By movie’s end, I was sick of Steve Abbott.

But I also realized that Alysia’s Abbott’s memoir was likely quite different from the movie, if for no other reason than the title alone conjures something more magic than miserable.

So I borrowed Fairyland, the book, from the library; and I’m so glad that I did. The book is lovely. Yes, the events portrayed in the movie are there. But they’re buffered by so many scenes of parental care and concern. In the book, Steve is less a narcissist than an innocent. His benign view of the world translates into a parental style that might be considered permissive, but certainly not uncaring.

Comparing the movie and the book offers a vivid illustration of how we contort reality to create drama. By leaving out the majority of positive parenting expressed in the book, while highlighting all of the shortcomings, Steve Abbott becomes a caricature of the nuanced, complex man he truly was. I gather that Alysia Abbott didn’t have a large voice in creating the movie, though her Boston Globe opinion piece indicates harmony with the result. But I, for one, wish the movie had found a better balance, offered us more joy. It’s something I’d like to discuss with Ms. Abbott. If we ever get the chance to meet.