9 Books Celebrating Dads of All Styles
Happy Father’s Day! As always, Foreword Reviews is celebrating by reading great indie books. Below are nine wonderful reads to give to your dad on his honorary day. There’s something here for every father: funny dads, serious dads, gay dads, single dads, spiritual dads, and more. Each book has something unique to offer, and they’re all perfect to share no matter your dad’s style.
Man in the Moon: Essays on Fathers and Fatherhood is a compilation of work already published in literary journals and publications. Every entry—each exploring the relationship between fathers and children—is equally strong, and picking the best is a fruitless endeavor. Editor Stephanie G’Schwind does an admirable job of mixing the emotional intensity of seventeen disparate works. Humor, sincerity, and a variety of experiences reveal the bond between father and kin.
New parents grappling with decisions like whether to have a hospital or home birth, circumcise or not, use cloth diapers or none at all, have baby sleep in the family bed or in a crib, or which of the many child-raising philosophies currently in vogue to adopt will have a lot of fun following along as Leaf immerses himself in being the best possible “conscious parenting” dad. Though fatherhood has left him little time for yoga classes, Leaf says that conscious parenting has made his attempts at mindfulness and union “better than ever.”
Parentonomics: An Economist Dad Looks at Parenting by Joshua Gans (The MIT Press)
What do you get when you cross an economist with a new dad? Answer: Joshua Gans and his comical observations on the functions of parenting. Gans turns his professional eye toward the personal experience of raising children and invites other parents to see habits and relationships from a different perspective. Less a manual than a memoir by a man unafraid of laughing at himself Parentonomics is a great distraction for moms and dads navigating complicated negotiations with their children.
Prodigal Father, Wayward Son: A Roadmap to Reconciliation by Sam and Gifford Keen (Divine Arts)
Sam Keen’s international bestseller, Fire in the Belly, addressed the potent issue of manliness in modern society. Taking it a step further, Keen and his son, Gifford, present an emotional sequel in Prodigal Father, Wayward Son: A Roadmap to Reconciliation, an autobiographical conversation exploring fatherhood and the quest to become a man. The Keens issue an “invitation to a journey” using their own reflections, some painful, some humorous, some tender, but all meaningful, as a “map to explore those key memories and stories that define your relationships.”
Without shying away from the painful parts of life, this anthology celebrates the role of fathers in their daughters’ lives. Every Father’s Daughter: Twenty-Four Women Writers Remember Their Fathers, selected and presented by novelist Margaret McMullan, is a heartfelt, honest look at the father-daughter relationship. In this anthology, nearly every daughter will find a voice that resonates with her own paternal relationship.
When a gay couple decides the parenting life is for them, their one-year stint as foster parents of three premature infant triplets becomes a tale that will make readers laugh, wrench their hearts, and cause them to reexamine their politics. Sometimes heart-wrenching, sometimes humorous, this memoir of building a family will inspire social change.
As a daughter approaches adulthood, both father and daughter may feel it’s not worth the effort to develop their relationship, that old patterns are too firmly entrenched to be changed. Not so fast, says Linda Nielsen. When the childhood/adolescent years don’t go well the father/daughter bond can be repaired and regenerated in the adult years. She looks at the average father/daughter relationship that simply never got off the ground—thus leaving an emotional hole in both lives. She acknowledges that not all damaged relationships can be fixed, but that’s not an outcome that can be predicted without trying.
Far from his home in Maine, a man shares his first night in a hotel room in the grim “worn to the bones” city of Moscow with a boy he has adopted from an orphanage. Under a midnight sun, the author finds “the beauty beyond the shadows” in the first glint of fatherhood. Such is the thrust of this collection of personal essays that addresses the adaptability of human beings to new and different environments.
Many people find out only in hindsight that they have prioritized their lives amiss; only with the perspective that comes with age and time are they able to see that they should have done things differently—spent more time with loved ones, given more of themselves to their children, been kinder and more present to their friends and associates—and so they leave this life with regrets. Arjun Sen is fortunate because he allowed a simple yet profound conversation with his daughter to change his life, allowing him to see, while he still had time, what was truly important.
Aimee Jodoin is deputy editor at Foreword Reviews. You can follow her on Twitter @aimeebeajo.
Aimee Jodoin
