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Hey Dad!
In Brian Doyle's first book, teenager Megan dreads making a road trip all the way across the country with her parents and younger brother Ryan. Her father's tendency to joke doesn't help. She'd rather stay home and be president of the Down with Boys Club any day. But she has no choice. She has to endure endless driving, being trapped in a car with her younger brother, and the great view of the transport trucks that box them in on all sides. But as the days go by Megan begins to change her mind. There are constant reports on the radio about forest fires across huge parts of the country. There is the old lady who owns a motel and is so glad to have the family stay there because the recent death of her husband has left her lonely and sad. There are the cute boys at a lakeside stop. All these experiences jumble together in her head. Love and death, family and friends, what matters and what doesn't, fill her mind as the vast country unrolls before the windows. Will a final confrontation with her father drive Megan over the edge?
- GenresCanada
112 pages, Paperback
First published May 1, 1978
39 people want to read
About the author
Brian Doyle
73 books3 followersLibrarian Note: There is more than one author in the GoodReads database with this name.
My very first piece of writing I published myself. I wrote in block letters, on the playground of Angelesca Square after a fresh snow fall, huge letters that airplanes could see, these words: MY BEST FRIEND GERALD IS A BASTARD.
For some reason (it was 1942) I wanted the Germans, who were coming any minute now to drop bombs on us, to know about Gerald. I'd overheard my parents talking sadly about Gerald being illegitimate and how sorry they felt. I thought if the Germans knew about Gerald and his problem and that he was my best friend they'd turn around and go home and not drop their bombs on us, here in Lowertown, Ottawa, Canada.
Of course, they never arrived (such was the power of radio those days) but they were the intended audience of my first sentence. First published sentence.
To communicate in clear, written sentences has been my vocation ever since.
In the middle of a teaching career I began dabbling in the genre of youthful narration in the tradition of Twain's Huck Finn. At the same time, I met the flower of the flock, the estimable, the eximious, the nonpareil editor and publisher, Patsy Aldana of Groundwood Books.
Together we have produced a dozen books and we're still cooking. The books are set in the Gatineau river valley and Ottawa. They are funny and sad! They are read by people of all ages though the narrators are young. The narrators are the age of the child who saw the Emperor's nakedness. They are clear eyed, candid, smart, unsophisticated and inexperienced.
The books have multiple layers, resulting in reluctant readers discovering them while elsewhere they are studied in university courses.
They have been translated in seven different languages and have been awarded national and international prizes too numerous to list here. They have been adapted to radio, stage and film. I have appeared in twenty performances of our book Angel Square on the stage of the National Arts Centre.
There has also been an opera and there's talk of a ballet. I have rinsed out my long-sleeved leotard and am waiting by the phone for the audition call.
I spend a lot of time at my cabin in the Gatineau Hills, sometimes with my four grandchildren and their parents, keeping in touch with the trees and the river and the rocks and keeping my ears and eyes open for those Luftwaffe bombers.
My very first piece of writing I published myself. I wrote in block letters, on the playground of Angelesca Square after a fresh snow fall, huge letters that airplanes could see, these words: MY BEST FRIEND GERALD IS A BASTARD.
For some reason (it was 1942) I wanted the Germans, who were coming any minute now to drop bombs on us, to know about Gerald. I'd overheard my parents talking sadly about Gerald being illegitimate and how sorry they felt. I thought if the Germans knew about Gerald and his problem and that he was my best friend they'd turn around and go home and not drop their bombs on us, here in Lowertown, Ottawa, Canada.
Of course, they never arrived (such was the power of radio those days) but they were the intended audience of my first sentence. First published sentence.
To communicate in clear, written sentences has been my vocation ever since.
In the middle of a teaching career I began dabbling in the genre of youthful narration in the tradition of Twain's Huck Finn. At the same time, I met the flower of the flock, the estimable, the eximious, the nonpareil editor and publisher, Patsy Aldana of Groundwood Books.
Together we have produced a dozen books and we're still cooking. The books are set in the Gatineau river valley and Ottawa. They are funny and sad! They are read by people of all ages though the narrators are young. The narrators are the age of the child who saw the Emperor's nakedness. They are clear eyed, candid, smart, unsophisticated and inexperienced.
The books have multiple layers, resulting in reluctant readers discovering them while elsewhere they are studied in university courses.
They have been translated in seven different languages and have been awarded national and international prizes too numerous to list here. They have been adapted to radio, stage and film. I have appeared in twenty performances of our book Angel Square on the stage of the National Arts Centre.
There has also been an opera and there's talk of a ballet. I have rinsed out my long-sleeved leotard and am waiting by the phone for the audition call.
I spend a lot of time at my cabin in the Gatineau Hills, sometimes with my four grandchildren and their parents, keeping in touch with the trees and the river and the rocks and keeping my ears and eyes open for those Luftwaffe bombers.
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Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews
February 26, 2015
"If they seem big to you from here, they won't seem as big when you get there. Everything is different than it looks to be. The lakes that seem big and deep are small and shallow. The lakes that seem small and shallow are big and deep. The land that looks kind is cruel. The sky that looks fierce is friendly."
This book has only just over 100 pages but it has managed to make me fall asleep more times than any of the 600 page novels I read recently, and this even although the premise of the book looks interesting:
13-year-old Megan's family is spending the summer holidays on a road trip with her family. Packed up in the car the family drives from Ottawa all across Canada to Vancouver. The only problem - Megan does not want to be there. Very early on she falls out with her dad, and most of the book is about her being a (stereo-)typical teenager.
Doyle succeeds in capturing that mood of Megan's not wanting to go on the trip, and her boredom, and her embarrassment when her father tries too hard to be cool. Where the book falls flat is in the plot. Not much happens until the last quarter of the book, and even then, the narration is kept so short that many of the interesting points about this coming of age story are lost or aren't explored at all.
This book has only just over 100 pages but it has managed to make me fall asleep more times than any of the 600 page novels I read recently, and this even although the premise of the book looks interesting:
13-year-old Megan's family is spending the summer holidays on a road trip with her family. Packed up in the car the family drives from Ottawa all across Canada to Vancouver. The only problem - Megan does not want to be there. Very early on she falls out with her dad, and most of the book is about her being a (stereo-)typical teenager.
Doyle succeeds in capturing that mood of Megan's not wanting to go on the trip, and her boredom, and her embarrassment when her father tries too hard to be cool. Where the book falls flat is in the plot. Not much happens until the last quarter of the book, and even then, the narration is kept so short that many of the interesting points about this coming of age story are lost or aren't explored at all.
May 8, 2017
This book for young adults was apparently banned in Ontario. Curious as to what could be the cause, I thought it might be a good choice for a bingo square in this years Canadian Content group challenge. Recalling how family road trips could get rather tense, still, they were travelling and family, so ultimately its all good eh?
Megan is just at that age when insistent hormonal permutations collide with a developing sense of identity. Her discovery of truth and sense of betrayal is played out in the course of a family road trip. Of course she is resentful, and mean to her younger brother. But it is the power struggle with her father, who repeatedly embarrasses her with his antics, that harnesses her jealousy of her brother doing guy things. She's not so sure she wants to be part of this family anymore.
So far so normal. Megan seems far more interested in food and the dinner menu than in her brief encounters with social justice issues. Her vivid imagination notes everything without much discrimination. When Dad intervenes between a racist waiter and a man who resembles the mythic Meti explorer Tete Jaune, she carefully records "We ate slowly, to let him catch up." p93.
Underneath the bland details there are secrets,unexplained, hastily hidden like the beer bottle on the picnic table, pushed behind the soda pop as the policeman approached. Was Dad drunk driving? Were those antics drunken? And what about the mothers peculiar bathroom habits and sudden withdrawals? Surely all is not as innocent as it seems,in fact there just may be some anti-establishment activity endorsed, but its likely all that beer is what got the book banned.
It sure made me long for a road trip though, and a family to take it with.
Megan is just at that age when insistent hormonal permutations collide with a developing sense of identity. Her discovery of truth and sense of betrayal is played out in the course of a family road trip. Of course she is resentful, and mean to her younger brother. But it is the power struggle with her father, who repeatedly embarrasses her with his antics, that harnesses her jealousy of her brother doing guy things. She's not so sure she wants to be part of this family anymore.
So far so normal. Megan seems far more interested in food and the dinner menu than in her brief encounters with social justice issues. Her vivid imagination notes everything without much discrimination. When Dad intervenes between a racist waiter and a man who resembles the mythic Meti explorer Tete Jaune, she carefully records "We ate slowly, to let him catch up." p93.
Underneath the bland details there are secrets,unexplained, hastily hidden like the beer bottle on the picnic table, pushed behind the soda pop as the policeman approached. Was Dad drunk driving? Were those antics drunken? And what about the mothers peculiar bathroom habits and sudden withdrawals? Surely all is not as innocent as it seems,in fact there just may be some anti-establishment activity endorsed, but its likely all that beer is what got the book banned.
It sure made me long for a road trip though, and a family to take it with.
February 24, 2017
I read this because I saw that it had been banned in northern Ontario when it was published. I was curious why the depiction of the family in the novel would cause distress. Was it because the 13 year old daughter is moody and rebellious in the face of a family car trip across Canada? Was it because the father is a bit of a show-off and not entirely sympathetic to his daughter's unhappiness? Was it when the father shows his fear of heights?
It was a lovely little novel about a family's trip across the country, where closeness causes friction but that same friction leads to smoother relationships between the members of the family. And it did not hurt to get glimpses of Canada.
It was a lovely little novel about a family's trip across the country, where closeness causes friction but that same friction leads to smoother relationships between the members of the family. And it did not hurt to get glimpses of Canada.
July 22, 2025
A cute nostalgic look at a road trip across Canada. I read You Can Pick Me up At Peggy's cover in school and was delighted to see that this is the first look at the same family. As some one who got dragged on too many road trips when I just wanted to stay home with my friends, I related to the protagonist.
July 28, 2021
The first of the Doyles and it still is a beautiful book - nearly forty years after it was first published!
June 13, 2016
One of my favorites since I was a kid. Really bittersweet and nostalgic. Reminds me a lot of the relationship I had with my dad growing up.
Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews