Here’s the publisher’s description:<\/p>\n
“Frank O\u2019Connor\u2019s hilarious tale of a tiny boy\u2019s war against his paternal rival in \u201cMy Oedipus Complex\u201d sits beside Ann Packer\u2019s touching portrait of a man preparing for the wonder and terror of his first child\u2019s birth. At the other end of the lifespan, John Updike\u2019s \u201cMy Father\u2019s Tears,\u201d Jim Shepard\u2019s \u201cThe Mortality of Parents,\u201d and William Maxwell\u2019s \u201cThe man who lost his father\u201d bring us face to face with a loss that is like no other.<\/p>\n “In between, we encounter a full range of emotions connecting men and their offspring: tenderness and devotion, anxiety and incomprehension, admiration and regret. Powerful patriarchs cast a long shadow in Katherine Mansfield\u2019s \u201cThe Daughters of the Late Colonel\u201d and D. H. Lawrence\u2019s \u201cThe Christening,\u201d while Edith Wharton\u2019s \u201cHis Father\u2019s Son\u201d sheds a more ironic light on the paternal legacy. E. L. Doctorow\u2019s young protagonist, forced to write letters impersonating his dead father, arrives at a deeper understanding of him, while in Helen Simpson\u2019s \u201cSorry?\u201d an old man\u2019s hearing aid seems to reveal what his children secretly think about him.<\/p>\n “Paternal bonds are forged outside biology, too: Graham Swift portrays a man wistfully seeking a substitute son, while Guy de Maupassant\u2019s forlorn waif triumphantly acquires an ideal father. In these twenty stories, an array of great writers\u2014ranging from Kafka, Joyce, and Nabokov to Raymond Carver, Harold Brodkey, and Andre Dubus\u2014offers a wonderfully varied assortment of fictional takes on paternity.”<\/p>\n Read too, if you’re curious, a review\/article by Peter Tonguette for The Christian Science Monitor<\/em>: “‘Stories of Fatherhood’ offers 17 portraits of parenting from a very diverse group of writers.”<\/a><\/p>\n List price for the hardcover is $16.00, but Amazon.com<\/a> is currently selling it for $12.19.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" On May 13, Everyman’s Library published a volume in their Everyman’s Pocket Classics series that revolves around the theme of fatherhood. Stories of Fatherhood, edited by Diana Secker Tesdell, includes the John Updike short story “My Father’s Tears,” and is … Continue reading ![\"Screen](\"https:\/\/blogs.iwu.edu\/johnupdikesociety\/files\/2014\/06\/Screen-Shot-2014-06-02-at-6.12.36-PM.png\")
<\/a>“Stories of Fatherhood<\/em> gathers more than a century of classic short stories about having, becoming, loving, and losing fathers.<\/p>\n