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Father's Day
'These perfectly realised stories … are inflected with the kind of humour reminiscent of Raymond Carver’s dark wit.’ — The Age
'Birch’s subject matter is ordinary life, lit from within with an honesty which makes his characters and their travails achingly familiar.’ — Cate Kennedy
Tony Birch has an eye for life lived at the margins and in Father’s Day he brings the streets of the inner-city to life with compassion and dry humour. But he also focuses on the relationships that connect us all, particularly the emotional lives of fathers and sons.
In subtle, understated prose touched with poetry, this new collection of stories cuts deep into the minor joys and tragedies of ordinary Australians.
'Birch’s subject matter is ordinary life, lit from within with an honesty which makes his characters and their travails achingly familiar.’ — Cate Kennedy
Tony Birch has an eye for life lived at the margins and in Father’s Day he brings the streets of the inner-city to life with compassion and dry humour. But he also focuses on the relationships that connect us all, particularly the emotional lives of fathers and sons.
In subtle, understated prose touched with poetry, this new collection of stories cuts deep into the minor joys and tragedies of ordinary Australians.
- GenresShort Stories
178 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2009
3 people are currently reading
123 people want to read
About the author
Tony Birch
47 books359 followersTony Birch is the author of Ghost River, which won the Victorian Premier’s Literary Award for Indigenous Writing and Blood, which was shortlisted for the Miles Franklin Award. He is also the author of Shadowboxing and three short story collections, Father’s Day, The Promise and Common People. In 2017 he was awarded the Patrick White Literary Award. Tony is a frequent contributor to ABC local and national radio and a regular guest at writers’ festivals. He lives in Melbourne and is a Senior Research Fellow at Victoria University.
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Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews
May 9, 2013
You know that feeling when you get on a reading roll? You finish a few books in quick succession and it’s like you’ve taken on this momentum. You have to be lucky with the books you pick though or you bog yourself in something that allows itself to be put down midway through and forgotten about. Tony Birch’s second collection of short stories, Father’s Day was certainly not one of those books that you could put down for too long.
It’s a subtle yet incredibly moving collection of short fiction that’s over-arching themes can be best described as dealing with family, those on the fringes of society and characters with something missing. After reading the story ‘Shadowboxing’ and his novel Blood last year, I have come to love not just how Birch is drawn toward dealing with marginal characters, like I do in my own writing, but his realist mode of writing. It is direct and unobtrusive. The danger I find with collections of short fiction is the pause between each piece and having to immerse yourself in a new one each time. But Birch’s realism allows for you to do that easily. You are not lost each time in thick obscure description in the beginning. Birch places you in the scene clearly and immediately. It is like the author is not even there.
But I guess critics of writing like Birch’s would argue that there is no art to it, and Birch often breaks the rule that you’re meant to “show not tell” but he does it so well. The statement of “fact” and the placement of those events without the intervention of the author is in itself quite moving. And to me, the style and the insignificant way in which he finishes most of his stories conveys a realism situated in the often mundane, subtle and trivial details that portray what it is to be a marginal character in society, so much so that they seem to be the kinds of stories that other writers would overlook and deem not significant enough to tell.
I’m someone who looks for books that punch you in the stomach. I look for great, cataclysmic events that leave me breathless. This collection is not like that but still leaves me thinking this is a very good collection of short stories. There are moments when pieces feel unfinished, but necessarily so and the sense of loss you get from some of them is a reaction that I think is not always the one you seek, but I think worthwhile all the same.
It’s a subtle yet incredibly moving collection of short fiction that’s over-arching themes can be best described as dealing with family, those on the fringes of society and characters with something missing. After reading the story ‘Shadowboxing’ and his novel Blood last year, I have come to love not just how Birch is drawn toward dealing with marginal characters, like I do in my own writing, but his realist mode of writing. It is direct and unobtrusive. The danger I find with collections of short fiction is the pause between each piece and having to immerse yourself in a new one each time. But Birch’s realism allows for you to do that easily. You are not lost each time in thick obscure description in the beginning. Birch places you in the scene clearly and immediately. It is like the author is not even there.
But I guess critics of writing like Birch’s would argue that there is no art to it, and Birch often breaks the rule that you’re meant to “show not tell” but he does it so well. The statement of “fact” and the placement of those events without the intervention of the author is in itself quite moving. And to me, the style and the insignificant way in which he finishes most of his stories conveys a realism situated in the often mundane, subtle and trivial details that portray what it is to be a marginal character in society, so much so that they seem to be the kinds of stories that other writers would overlook and deem not significant enough to tell.
I’m someone who looks for books that punch you in the stomach. I look for great, cataclysmic events that leave me breathless. This collection is not like that but still leaves me thinking this is a very good collection of short stories. There are moments when pieces feel unfinished, but necessarily so and the sense of loss you get from some of them is a reaction that I think is not always the one you seek, but I think worthwhile all the same.
August 2, 2021
Tony Birch's prose is indescribably beautiful. Once again his short stories capture everyday occurrences in a way that is both heartbreaking and beautiful. I can relate to each one of these stories, because each story is about something that I can imagine happening in my own life or at least in my own world (it helps that these stories are very clearly set in Melbourne). I can't quite explain the almost nostalgic fixation I have with Birch's writing style, but every single time I read his writing I fall more in love with it.
February 17, 2026
A beautiful collection of short stories that deal with the real, mundane and maybe kinda weird or fringe characters of everyday Australian life.
Would only say that a couple of stories felt a bit too meandering and pointless (or I probably just missed the point and/or theme)
Would only say that a couple of stories felt a bit too meandering and pointless (or I probably just missed the point and/or theme)
June 30, 2019
Yet again another brilliant book of short stories by Tony Birch.
April 13, 2013
I read this and Birch's other collection of short stories - Shadowboxing - in one day. That is how compelling I found his story telling.
I was lead to these books via an interview Richard Fidler did with Birch on his radio show Conversations. You can find the interview here - http://www.abc.net.au/local/stories/2...
The interview is well worth listening to as it highlights the link between Birch's stories and his own experience growing up in Melbourne in the 1960's. In appears that in many stories it is a case of change the names to protect the (not so) innocent!
Unlike the stories in Shadowboxing, the stories in Father's Day are not linked,but once again shine a spotlight on people's lives as they move through their highs and lows. Using his own experiences lends Birch's stories an air of authenticity. The reader is transported to the time and place of the story, sharing the joys and fears of the characters and allowing the reader for a short time to live in a completely different time.but once again shine a spotlight on people's lives as they move through their highs and lows.
I was lead to these books via an interview Richard Fidler did with Birch on his radio show Conversations. You can find the interview here - http://www.abc.net.au/local/stories/2...
The interview is well worth listening to as it highlights the link between Birch's stories and his own experience growing up in Melbourne in the 1960's. In appears that in many stories it is a case of change the names to protect the (not so) innocent!
Unlike the stories in Shadowboxing, the stories in Father's Day are not linked,but once again shine a spotlight on people's lives as they move through their highs and lows. Using his own experiences lends Birch's stories an air of authenticity. The reader is transported to the time and place of the story, sharing the joys and fears of the characters and allowing the reader for a short time to live in a completely different time.but once again shine a spotlight on people's lives as they move through their highs and lows.
December 22, 2014
Tony Birch writes in an incredibly subtle and yet matter-of-fact way. It's actually quite an art because even though the style is simple and explicit, actually there is just so much that is implied and requires input from the reader. Some of the stories, in a narrative sense, are absolute crackers too, and help humanise the people that we pass on the street or in the supermarket every day. A great collection of shorts.
December 9, 2014
Gritty and challenging stories, many of which are uplifting but still felt very raw.
Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews