And When Did You Last See Your Father?

by Blake Morrison

First published in 1993, Blake Morrison's And When Did You Last See Your Father? is an extraordinary portrait of family life, father-son relationships and bereavement. It became a best-seller and inspired a whole genre of confessional memoirs, winning the Waterstone's/Volvo/Esquire Award for Non-Fiction and the J. R. Ackerley Prize for Autobiography. This edition includes a new afterword by the author.

Genres: Nonfiction, Memoir, Biography, Biography Memoir, Death, Autobiography, College

224 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 1, 1993

About the author

Blake Morrison was educated at Nottingham University, McMaster University and University College, London. After working for the Times Literary Supplement, he went on to become literary editor of both The Observer and the Independent on Sunday before becoming a full-time writer in 1995.

A Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature, and former Chair of the Poetry Book Society and Vice-Chair of PEN, Blake has written fiction, poetry, journalism, literary criticism and libretti, as well as adapting plays for the stage. His best-known works are probably his two memoirs, "And When Did You Last See Your Father?" and "Things My Mother Never Told Me."

Since 2003, Blake has been Professor of Creative and Life Writing at Goldsmiths College. He lives in south London, with his wife and three children.

Reviews

[Andy Marr · Rating 4 out of 5]

I watched - and loved - the film adaptation of this book many years ago, years before I became aware of Morrison's memoir. Though I remember the film well, it didn't spoil the reading of this book at all, for the book's strengths lie in its beautiful prose and its fascinating study of death and grief. A brilliant and deeply underrated biography.

[Julie · Rating 5 out of 5]

I envied Blake Morrison as I read about his relationship with his elderly father. My father died in his mid forties. I was twenty. I would like to have know him into my middle-age and perhaps beyond.

Morrison warns us: "don't underestimate filial grief, don't think because you no longer live with your parents, have had a difficult relationship with them, are grown up and perhaps a parent yourself, don't think that will make it any easier when they die." He is right.

I miss knowing my father as a maturing adult, and I loved reading about Morrison's relationship with his father. It was tender, poignant and full of the kind of honesty that made me keep reading, kept me wanting to know and feel more. Sure, many tears fell as I read but there was humor and joy also.

Morrison includes the intimate details of caring for his father, noting how his body changes with age and illness. He writes, "His pacemaker, once buried in the fat of his chest, now stands proud, like a parcel on a doormat."

He also captures how it's the serendipitous sight of every day items that cause us to catch our breath in remembrance. For example, "I catch sight of my father's leather dog-lead hanging on the back door, and I think not just of him but of the others who aren't here, either..."

It's truly an extraordinary memoir and I am glad I read it.

[Rebecca · Rating 5 out of 5]

An extraordinary memoir based around the author’s relationship with his father. Alternating chapters give glimpses into earlier family life and narrate Morrison’s father’s decline and death from cancer. His parents were Yorkshire doctors, his father such an incorrigible chancer that you can’t help but love him. “This is the way it was with my father. Minor duplicities. Little fiddles. Money-saving, time-saving, privilege-attaining fragments of opportunism. The queue-jump, the backhander, the deal under the table … With his innocence, confidence and hail-fellow cheeriness, my father could usually talk his way into anything, and usually, when caught, out of anything.” This is simply marvelously written, not a bad line in the whole thing. (The title comes from the name of a Victorian painting of the English Civil War by W.F. Yeames.)

More favorite passages:

“My mother’s fear of the chaos she’ll inherit is understandable, though I know she is really saying something else. She dreads the paperwork because paper will soon be all that remains of him.”

“Telescoped, edited, misremembered, any family’s past seems a catalogue of grief and dispersal.”

“Chastened, afraid, it’s tempting for me to melt all his contradictions into a stream of hagiography. But I know the contradictions are there: the unsnobbish protector and defender of ‘ordinary decent folk’ had his big house, his Merc, his live-in maid, and was acutely aware of his social status; the sentimental family man could be a bully and tyrant; the open-hearted extrovert had a trove of secrets and hang-ups.”

“What would my father’s life have been without these little scams and victories? Not his life, anyway. What will my life be like without his stories of them? Not mine.”

[Anneliese Tirry · Rating 4 out of 5]

4 sterren - en dat voor een boek over een vader die ik zeer onsympathiek vond, een bullebak, een snoever, een competitiebeest, een vat testosteron - maar wiens verval en sterven prachtig en gevoelig beschreven wordt door de zoon. De stadia van de korte ziekte van de vader worden afgewisseld met flashbacks van de schrijver naar zijn jeugd.
De beschrijving van het verval, ook nà het sterven, het zelfs heel zinnelijke afscheid, is mooi, zelfs poëtisch, verwoord.
Wat mij ook trof waren de rake vragen en observaties van de auteur/zoon.
"There is still a difference between us, but not the same one: we have both moved on a stage, he into the silent past all monitoring, I forced to listen to a strained, erratic heart. Patron and protector, he'd been the wall between me and death, now that wall is gone; now I'm on my own."

[Hendrik · Rating 4 out of 5]

It is a well-written story.

In some ways I could relate to the story. Losing a father is one if the hardest parts of life.

And When Did You Last See Your Father? The day of the funeral, dreams and photos.

The are many of us who could relate to the story.

Even those who are still lucky to have their fathers, will love the story.

[Bettie · Rating 3 out of 5]

Bettie's Books

[Karen · Rating 5 out of 5]

When did you last see your father? Was it when they burnt the coffin? Put the lid on it? When he exhaled his last breath? When he last sat up and said something? When he last recognized me? When he last smiled? When he last did something for himself unaided? When he last felt healthy? When he last thought he might be healthy, before they brought the news? The weeks before he left us, or life left him, were a series of depletions; each day we thought ‘he can’t get less like himself than this,’ and each day he did. I keep trying to find the last moment when he was still unmistakably there, in the fullness of his being, ‘him’.

That is the first paragraph of the last chapter of this book and it really touched me. Blake Morrison has written a book about his father’s life and his death. That sounds like an old story that everyone has written, but it’s not. It’s not a memory of everything being wonderful or everything being horrid. It’s a story of a relationship between father and son, with all of its quirks, embarrassments, vulnerability, love, bonding, etc. It was a real story, one that most of us can easily relate to.

This book has been made into a movie, which I haven't yet seen but plan to. Colin Firth plays Blake Morrison and Jim Broadbent plays his father, Dr. Arthur Morrison. With those two, and this story, it has to be good.

[Laurel · Rating 1 out of 5]

I just wasn't interested enough in the characters. I was a bit bored and since I have a stack of books I want to read, I moved on.

[Laura · Rating 3 out of 5]

From BBC Radio 4 Extra:
Blake Morrison reads his award-winning tribute to his father, a cantankerous Yorkshire GP.

[Shawn W · Rating 4 out of 5]

“Stand them up against grief, and even the greatest poems, the greatest paintings, the greatest novels lose the power to console. I used to think that solace was the point of art, or part of it; now it’s failed the test, it doesn’t seem to have much point at all.”

[Neil Fulwood · Rating 4 out of 5]

Confessional writing par excellence: searching, profound, uncomfortable and viscerally moving.

[Imogen Arbenz · Rating 4 out of 5]

Read this book for my University Course and, loved it
There is a lot to be said about the influence a family member holds to anyone in their family
This gives the most raw detail The most deep parts of himself are spoken about. I highly recommend reading the after thought so much can be said.

[woody guthrie · Rating 5 out of 5]

I picked up this book after a review on radio 4, it charts the relationship of father and son through the sons eyes {Blake Morrison}. It was not a subject I would normaly read but it has become one of my favourite books. I found lots of simalarities with my own father and son relationship even though we come from a completly different background to the author. I still dip in now and again and its still a good read. It is a sad tale of a dying father and a sons last attempt to tie up loose ends and reflect on his childhood, but there are many amusing moments as well.It is probably the first book that made me think about how my father and I get on and how to change things for the better.

[Rebecca · Rating 4 out of 5]

Captures a 50s childhood and embarrassing father perfectly. Having seen the film, I think the father was endearing despite his more irritating habits. Both the film and the book made me think the author himself might be a somewhat irritating and prissy son to have, but he does write well and movingly about the last stages of terminal illness, and the sometimes predictable reactions of those around. Recommend both!

[123bex · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was ok. A nice quick read. I wish I hadn't read it immediately after the vastly superior Red Dust Road. It's just kind of a manpain manifesto...doesn't hold too much interest for me as a story and bizarrely leaves out things I would think are very important, like what kind of father the author is. His own children are barely an afterthought. However, it is evocative and vibrant in its illustration of the characters.

[Pam Doyle · Rating 2 out of 5]

Dad is dying and book is about the sons reflections as he comes to terms with his father dying. Perhaps I lacked empathy because I’ve never been through it. Although the considerations on etiquette resonated.

This might be one of those books I find myself thinking about long after I’ve finished it.

[❀ Hana · Rating 2 out of 5]

It's a shame my span of interest is relative to a goldfish's memory. I lost interest after one third - so I guess it's me, not the book. Nevertheless, thanks to this book, I kept on contemplating my relationship with my parents throughout the reading.

[Ramesh Prabhu · Rating 5 out of 5]

A book that MUST be read by EVERYONE.

[Gonzaga Escauriaza · Rating 1 out of 5]

it did not take my full attention anytime.

[Edward · Rating 4 out of 5]

The title of this son’s memoir of his father could refer to a famous painting, set during the English Civil War, showing a young boy being questioned as to the whereabouts of his father. Of course, it’s a general question, too, that any child could be asked about his father. Blake’s memoir is of his father who died of cancer at 75, and moves back and forth between the physical details of his dying, and memories of his father at much earlier ages.

Morrison makes it clear that this man was no angel, no paragon of virtue about whom he’s going to write a hagiography. Morrison’s father was a no-nonsense physician in Yorkshire. He could be generous and good-hearted, but he could also be blunt , a bully, a tyrant and had a difficult relationship with his son, Blake, who had no desire to follow in his father’s footsteps as a physician.

There is irony in the book as the words at his funeral service extol him as “a loving husband and devoted father, a valued colleague in his medical profession; a caring counselor and confidant; a good friend to high and low, rich and poor.” During the social gathering afterwards, people general express good memories of him.

Morrison comments that friends and contemporaries have written moving elegies for their fathers, and if he had wanted to, he could have done the same, emphasizing his father’s long service as a doctor in the community. But what he wants to do is really “see” his father with both his virtues and his faults.

On the one hand, we never forget that Arthur Morrison was an ordinary man that we pity. He is seen in the present as wasting away, helpless . unable to care for his basic physical needs. But in his past, he could be exasperating, telling petty lies, always needlessly looking for a bargain to save money, employing his sexual charms. He was not a serious lawbreaker, though, and considered himself as a model, if smarter than most, citizen.

The book is made up of numerous anecdotes of his father’s behavior and how he ofen took advantage of of his long-suffering wife and embarrassed children. Morrison writes: “ I know the contradictions are there: the unsnobbish protector and defender of ‘ordinary decent folk’ had his big house, his Merc, his live-in maid, and was acutely aware of his social status; the sentimental family man could be a bully and tyrant; the open-hearted extrovert had a trove of secrets and hang-ups. . . What would my father’s life have been without these little scams and victories? Not his life, anyway. What will my life be like without his stories of them? Not mine.”

Those last lines hint at the reasons that Morrison wrote this memoir. To know who he is, he has to know who his father was. One of the most difficult things in the world is to know who we are, and to even begin to penetrate that mystery, we try to know, to “see” our parents.

[Melissa Killian · Rating 4 out of 5]

I saw the movie version of this book years ago, not long after my mom passed, and it spoke to me enough that I went and got the book, but it's taken me until now to finally read it. That works out well, though, because the father in the story reminds me somewhat of my grandpa, who has passed since I saw the movie. They are of the same generation so I could definitely see similarities between my family stories and the author's: great love but also great embarrassment, family secrets that aren't so secret but are never spoken of, and watching a loved one suffer through sickness and death, then dealing with it all afterward.

I will say that this is definitely the story of a privileged, white, upper-middle class family, and at times, the author seems spoiled, ungrateful, and pretentious, but these are the feelings of a boy, and then young man, who doesn't appreciate what he has until it's gone, and that seems real. Blake spends most of his life trying to get away from his father, who loves him dearly but can be suffocating, only to realize how much he took his father for granted and will miss him terribly. This book is a relatable tribute to a man who is deeply flawed, but lovable. As most of us are.

[J · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.5 stars would be fairer. Had this one hanging around on my shelves for ages, and was expecting a totally different sort of (harrowing) book from the title and from not having looked properly at the blurb, but very glad to have got what I got. Memory really plays tricks: the book has been around on my shelves for "ages", I always imagined I picked this up during my undergraduate days (price sticker from the ill-fated Galloway and Porter on Sidney Street), but since, upon closer inspection, the edition comes from 2006 there is clearly a lot of story-telling going on in my head and very little sense of the speed of passing time.

Wonderfully written, feels very honest even though there are many things unsaid (and the afterword from my 2003 edition is gently illuminating), real despite the art(ifice), much food for thought. What is a person's life? What are we made of? Why?

Other people really are extremely interesting. And very sad. But we go on day by day.

[Heidi · Rating 4 out of 5]

“I want to warn people,” Blake Morrison says. “Don’t underestimate filial grief, don’t think because you no longer live with your parents, have had a difficult relationship with them, are grown up and perhaps a parent yourself, don’t think that will make it any easier when they die.”

Because it won’t. I, too, know this.

Blake says he used to divide the world between those with children and those without, but “now I think it divides between those who’ve lost a parent and those whose parents are still alive.”

Belatedly, he writes condolence letters to bereaved friends, “ashamed at not having done [so] before.”

Blake Morrison’s dad is worthy of the anguish. He is loved as deeply for his virtues as for his infuriating, messy humanity, and the son, raw and vulnerable, doesn’t flinch in his truth-telling. Each perfectly rendered sentence is in homage to his imperfect dad.

By the end of the book, he’d turned me into one of his army of mourners.

[Jim Woolwine · Rating 4 out of 5]

Not atypical plot line. Father dies and son reviews his interactions with the father. Son tries to be his own man but wonders if he will ever measure up in his father's eyes.

Morrison is an English writer - this book contains much vocabulary that is more English than American; it is also heavily geographically based -- towns and villages in the neighborhood, travels to the English countryside and Wales. I read this as a paperback so could not take advantage of the Kindle's look-up feature.

The book, the previous paragraph aside, is an easy, enjoyable read. Morisson is a good writer. The father is quite the character so the reader jumps from one entertaining episode or quandry to another up to and including his funeral. The son is a good soldier trodding along with his father and only occasionally embarrassed by his antics.

[Annabelle · Rating 4 out of 5]

Arthur Morrison is a loud and colourful character. He's also dying of cancer. With the narrative switching between Arthur at his greatest and his tragically diminished final days, the reader, along with the writer, mourns the loss of an ordinary but magnificent man. Unflinching in its portrayal, it's an honest and heartfelt memoir that - for all its morbid subject matter - teems with life and vivacity.

A wonderful read, though at times a bit heavy (by nature of the subject rather than poor writing) however, it manages to portray profound loss without being miserable. Genuinely life-affirming and uplifting.

[Zzzareader · Rating 4 out of 5]

An autobiographical (narrative non-fiction according to the back cover) account of a son on his fathers sudden demise to cancer and reviewing the relationship to his father in retrospect. It was a good read for me, mainly down to the fact that the family home was in the Yorkshire Dales in the UK and there were a lot of place names that I remembered. Not much description but it triggered my own memories. There is a film version with British acting legends Jim Broadbent, Colin Firth and Sarah Lancaster in lead roles.

[Salli · Rating 3 out of 5]

Furhter reading has not really improved my verdict of Dull. Juts like so many other auto/biographies IO have read in the past but missing whatever it is that makes Bill Bryson or James Herriot a best seller. The last chapter improved my view a little but not enough to up my star rating. Still puzzling over what made it so dull.

[Jude Martyński · Rating 4 out of 5]

160 or so pages in and I was going to give it 3 stars. Despite knowing the ending from before you even start reading, it catches you off-guard. The afterword lets everything fall into place.

"I thought that to see my father dying might remove my fear of death, and so it did. I hadn't reckoned on its making death seem preferable to life."

And when did you last see your father?

[Tom Helmick · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a book Mark read in his book club and I found it an interesting read. This man was not much like our Dad, yet his son's recounting of his life, particularly the last four months, was such that I found myself more compassionate to Dad. I'm glad I read it.

[Kathleen · Rating 4 out of 5]

Blake knows how to share just the right kind of details to make his story pop! Having seen the movie twice, I had no idea it was based on a memoir. Of course that launched me into a film/book comparison. As usual, the book won.