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Stories of Fatherhood
Stories of Fatherhood gathers more than a century of classic short stories about having, becoming, loving, and losing fathers.
Frank O’Connor’s hilarious tale of a tiny boy’s war against his paternal rival in “My Oedipus Complex” sits beside Ann Packer’s touching portrait of a man preparing for the wonder and terror of his first child’s birth. At the other end of the lifespan, John Updike’s “My Father’s Tears,” Jim Shepard’s “The Mortality of Parents,” and William Maxwell’s “The man who lost his father” bring us face to face with a loss that is like no other.
In between, we encounter a full range of emotions connecting men and their tenderness and devotion, anxiety and incomprehension, admiration and regret. Powerful patriarchs cast a long shadow in Katherine Mansfield’s “The Daughters of the Late Colonel” and D. H. Lawrence’s “The Christening,” while Edith Wharton’s “His Father’s Son” sheds a more ironic light on the paternal legacy. E. L. Doctorow’s young protagonist, forced to write letters impersonating his dead father, arrives at a deeper understanding of him, while in Helen Simpson’s “Sorry?” an old man’s hearing aid seems to reveal what his children secretly think about him. Paternal bonds are forged outside biology, Graham Swift portrays a man wistfully seeking a substitute son, while Guy de Maupassant’s forlorn waif triumphantly acquires an ideal father. In these twenty stories, an array of great writers—ranging from Kafka, Joyce, and Nabokov to Raymond Carver, Harold Brodkey, and Andre Dubus—offers a wonderfully varied assortment of fictional takes on paternity.
Frank O’Connor’s hilarious tale of a tiny boy’s war against his paternal rival in “My Oedipus Complex” sits beside Ann Packer’s touching portrait of a man preparing for the wonder and terror of his first child’s birth. At the other end of the lifespan, John Updike’s “My Father’s Tears,” Jim Shepard’s “The Mortality of Parents,” and William Maxwell’s “The man who lost his father” bring us face to face with a loss that is like no other.
In between, we encounter a full range of emotions connecting men and their tenderness and devotion, anxiety and incomprehension, admiration and regret. Powerful patriarchs cast a long shadow in Katherine Mansfield’s “The Daughters of the Late Colonel” and D. H. Lawrence’s “The Christening,” while Edith Wharton’s “His Father’s Son” sheds a more ironic light on the paternal legacy. E. L. Doctorow’s young protagonist, forced to write letters impersonating his dead father, arrives at a deeper understanding of him, while in Helen Simpson’s “Sorry?” an old man’s hearing aid seems to reveal what his children secretly think about him. Paternal bonds are forged outside biology, Graham Swift portrays a man wistfully seeking a substitute son, while Guy de Maupassant’s forlorn waif triumphantly acquires an ideal father. In these twenty stories, an array of great writers—ranging from Kafka, Joyce, and Nabokov to Raymond Carver, Harold Brodkey, and Andre Dubus—offers a wonderfully varied assortment of fictional takes on paternity.
352 pages, Hardcover
First published May 13, 2014
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Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
July 19, 2015
Another volume from a well-curated series of Everyman's Library Pocket Classics. Only one outright clunker - Harold Brodkey's "His Son, in his Arms, in Light, Aloft". The second Brodkey story I've run across lately that I thought was overstuffed, pompous, self-important - which is ironic, since I could be describing myself! Otherwise, a nice mix of classic (Joyce, Nabokov, Wharton, Carver) and modern (Packer, Shepard, Maxwell) short stories tangentially related to fatherhood. I was mentally expecting a "Chicken Soup" style collection about how great dads are. I was wrong! (Kafka's "The Judgement" is included - hardly a cuddly papa). My favorites are Andre Dubus' "A Father's Story", Ann Packer's "Her Firstborn", Jim Shepard's "The Mortality of Parents" and a beautiful posthumous Updike story called "My Father's Tears". As a father and a son, this was a nice opportunity to think about my own role and relationships as such. If that isn't the point of fiction, I don't know what is.
June 9, 2022
The Everyman series of short stories continues to be worthwhile. Any short story collection ranges from the 3 star to the 5 star. Most are worth reading, here are a few highlights...
5 star
E.L. Doctorow “The writer in the family”
William Maxwell “The man who lost his father”
4 star
Graham Swift “Gabor”
Andre Dubus “A father’s story”
3 star
Raymond Carver “My Oedipus complex”
Vladimir Nabokov “Christmas”
Katherine Mansfield “The daughters of the colonel”
5 star
E.L. Doctorow “The writer in the family”
William Maxwell “The man who lost his father”
4 star
Graham Swift “Gabor”
Andre Dubus “A father’s story”
3 star
Raymond Carver “My Oedipus complex”
Vladimir Nabokov “Christmas”
Katherine Mansfield “The daughters of the colonel”
April 9, 2024
Nice collection, enjoyed some more than others and some very much.
October 14, 2023
Interesting collection of stories with fatherhood as its central theme.
December 4, 2024
Like a lot of short story collections, there were hits and misses here. I was moved by fewer of them than expected and moved MOST by the John Updike one (which I’d read before), exactly as expected.
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews