Best wishes and all good thoughts to Mark and his family. Yesterday’s post about his father’s illness was saddening and sobering. Most of us will have to face this at some point (if we haven’t already). It’s never easy. My dad’s been gone for 25 years, but I remember every minute of his time in the hospital. My mom and I went into efficiency mode—What do you need, Pop? Books? Magazines? TV off, or on? Painkillers? Pillows? Water?—while trying to pry honest information from the doctors and nurses—while also trying to have a few meaningful conversations with each other and with Dad. Under the circumstances, nerves can get raw. Everywhere you look, the past rears its lovely-ugly head. You are reminded in the most primal way that these are the people who made you. Whatever has happened in the years since childhood, there's no escaping the knowledge that your parents were your first love.
It’s no surprise to anyone who reads this blog that Mark’s thoughts would turn to books. In the comments to his post, several excellent novels were suggested as relevant reading. A number of people mentioned Gilead; despite the diatribe last time I guested, it is indeed a perfect father/son story. A spin through the bookshelves turned up more possibilities. With one notable exception, the novels listed below are not particularly cheery, or uplifting, but they tell the truth, which, to my mind, is more comforting.
Death of an Ordinary Man by Glen Duncan
This was one of my favorite novels this past year. The conceit is similar to that of The Lovely Bones, but Duncan’s storytelling is more sophisticated. The narrator, a young father who hasn’t quite figured out where he’s landed after death, is compelled to follow his wife and kids through the terrible aftermath. Beautifully written, with a thought-provoking conclusion.
Joe by Larry Brown
There’s a father in Joe who is as evil as they come (he sells one child outright and pimps another). But the real father/son bond is between young Gary (who’s never even owned a toothbrush) and the title character, Joe, a hard-working, hard-drinking ex-con who takes the teenager under his wing.
So Long, See You Tomorrow by William Maxwell
The father’s role in this story is one of failure: lost in grief after the death of his wife, he is unable to comfort his son. Much of the novel circles around how the narrator copes. Intertwined is the story of a second boy, a playmate whose father shoots a neighbor while in a jealous rage, then kills himself. The novel, with its calm, precise prose, forces you to think about the consequences of abandonment.
Girls by Fred Busch
This is a tough one to get through. The narrator, a small-town campus cop, loses his baby daughter under suspicious circumstances, then takes on a search for a local teenager who's gone missing. Busch is so talented, and so thoroughly in command of his story, every single word pays off.
To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
In all of literature is there a more magnificent father than Atticus Finch? A man of more unalloyed decency? I read this book as a child, and wished for Atticus to crawl out of the pages, to stand beside me and set his hand on my head.
I would also recommend Fred Bush's sequel to Girls, North.
Posted by: birnbaum | July 19, 2005 at 07:21 AM