Ann S. Epstein writes novels, short stories, memoir, essays, and poems. Please use the links or site menu to go to the HOME PAGE; learn about her NOVELS, SHORT STORIES, MEMOIR, ESSAYS, and POEMS; find interesting facts in BEHIND THE STORY; read REFLECTIONS on writing; check NEWS for updates on publications and related events; see REVIEWS; learn about her END-OF-LIFE DOULA credentials and services; and CONTACT US to send webmail.
See my latest SPILL IT! essay titled “Is Hope Hopeless?” “Hope” (noun) is a desire for something to happen, a wish for things to get better, or a dream or aspiration. Hope is also a feeling of optimism — trust, reliance — that what is desired will happen. “Hope” (verb) is to have that positive, expectant feeling. The virtues and futility of hope have been debated since ancient times. Today, faced with seemingly insurmountable problems, dystopian hopelessness is on the rise. Is this despair justified? Can it even be healthy? Or does hopelessness endanger individual well-being and pose a threat to society? Read the essay and choose your side. [Note: I wrote the essay several months ago, before the invasion of Ukraine and the recent Supreme Court decision. My position on hope hasn’t changed, but it’s hard to maintain these days!]
Is hope justified?Are you an optimist or a pessimist?
Michael Corleone in The Godfather reluctantly takes over from his father Vito to help his family. He lies to his wife and hides the truth from his kids. His ruthlessness comes back to haunt him, however, when “the family business” — The Mafia — results in his daughter’s death. For the story of another bad dad, read The Great Stork Derby, based on an actual contest in which a husband pressures his wife to have babies for cash and, fifty years later, learns the true value of fatherhood. Read more about the book in NOVELS.
Accounts payable in the “family business”Toronto, 1926: A husband pressures his wife to have babies for a large cash prize
The subject of Sylvia Paths’s poem “Daddy” is a predator and a Nazi who should be renounced, but also the father of a woman who loves him. Plath’s line, “Every woman adores a Fascist” indicts both the reader and him. For the story of another bad dad, read The Great Stork Derby, based on an actual contest in which a husband pressures his wife to have babies for cash and, fifty years later, learns the true value of fatherhood. Read more about the book in NOVELS.
Sylvia Plath: A daughter torn between love and hateToronto, 1926: A husband pressures his wife to have babies for a large cash prize
Pop star Britney Spears’s father Jamie controlled her life, abused her, and squandered her money through a 13-year conservatorship until a new lawyer petitioned to remove him. Britney finally danced her way to freedom, but her father is demanding she pay his legal fees! For the story of another bad dad, read The Great Stork Derby, based on an actual contest in which a husband pressures his wife to have babies for cash and, fifty years later, learns the true value of fatherhood. Read more about the book in NOVELS.
Machiavellian and mercenary daddyToronto, 1926: A husband pressures his wife to have babies for a large cash prize
In John Cheever’s story “Reunion,” a boy who hasn’t seen his father in the three years since his parents divorced, has one hour to spend with him in Grand Central Station. The dad spends that time in search of a drink and the hour ends without their having talked at all. The boy says, “That’s all right, Daddy,” but they never see each other again. For the story of another bad dad, read The Great Stork Derby, based on an actual contest in which a husband pressures his wife to have babies for cash and, fifty years later, learns the true value of fatherhood. Read more about the book in NOVELS.
A father prioritizes his booze over his boyToronto, 1926: A husband pressures his wife to have babies for a large cash prize
My Goodreads and Amazon reviews of Italian Bones in the Snow: A Memoir in Shorts by Elaina Battista-Parsons (Rating 5) – You Want to Be Her Friend. The memoir Italian Bones in the Snow by Elaina Battista-Parsons seamlessly interlaces prose and poetry to introduce readers to a free-ranging author who is strong-willed, opinionated, adventurous, and sensitive. She is an unapologetic sensualist who refuses to tone down her lust, a woman neither too afraid to reveal her imperfections nor too shy to brag about her strengths. This honest self-portrait offers penetrating observations but instead of boring down directly, Battista-Parsons approaches her subjects at a slant. Her reflections draw offbeat and intriguing connections between objects, places, events, and character traits. For example, in a piece on color, she identifies herself as a “green” person and brilliantly uses shades of green to elucidate the stages of life. As an author myself (see my Amazon author page and Goodreads author page), I often search for the right metaphor to represent a feeling or thought. Here, instead of treating color as a mere adjective, Battista-Parsons treats it as an entity in itself. Her associative mind operates with the kind of primary thinking we associate with childhood. That playfulness is especially on display in her poetry. What makes Battista-Parsons a disciplined adult, however, is that she then works hard to polish each image to perfection. Readers will find it liberating to meet this bold creature who is equally frank about her reverence for the women who raised her and the admiration she in turn engenders in men. You want to run beside her well-muscled legs along the Jersey shore and inhale her energy. You want to be her friend. It’s easy. Just pick up her book.
An honest and liberating self-portraitWhy writers read: “To find words for what we already know.” – Alberto Manguel
In Titus Andronicus, Shakespeare’s most violent play (14 murders total), no one is a good guy. But patriarch Titus comes off as the worst for killing his son and then his daughter, who has already been raped and mutilated. Predictably, this is one of The Bard’s least performed plays. For the story of another bad dad, read The Great Stork Derby, based on an actual contest in which a husband pressures his wife to have babies for cash and, fifty years later, learns the true value of fatherhood. Read more about the book in NOVELS.
Another scene, another murderToronto, 1926: A husband pressures his wife to have babies for a large cash prize
My Goodreads and Amazon reviews of Violeta by Isabel Allende (Rating 3) – Mechanical Realism.Violeta by Isabel Allende is an epistolary novel written by a 100-year-old woman to someone we learn midway through the book is her grandson. (This revelation is not a spoiler; Allende creates neither mystery nor curiosity about the correspondent’s identity.) Spanning a century from the Spanish flu to COVID, the book promises to explore a woman’s evolution from spoiled rich girl to women’s rights activist. Alas, this opportunity is squandered. Instead, readers slog through a dispassionate chronology of marriages and affairs, motherhood, business acumen, national horrors, and global tragedies. Violeta is emotionally flat. She has no lasting regrets, no festering wounds. Her joys are evanescent, her victories vicarious. Allende, known for writing mesmerizing novels of magic realism, has instead written an expository account of the abuses of an unnamed right-wing Latin American regime. Readers meet a multiplying cast of characters, but only a few are memorable. As a writer of historical fiction myself (see my Amazon author page and Goodreads author page), I know that to entice readers to imagine themselves in another time and place, an author must immerse them in the lives of fully imagined people. Allende’s Violeta keeps both characters and readers at a distance.
A monotonous recitation of 100 years of historyWhy writers read: “A good book is an event in my life.” – Stendhal
The dad in Akhil Sharma’s An Obedient Father rapes his 12-year-old daughter and decades later, when she comes to live with him because she’s broke, thinks about raping her daughter. He feels bad about his badness but too bad for this family rapist. For the story of another bad dad, read The Great Stork Derby, based on an actual contest in which a husband pressures his wife to have babies for cash and, fifty years later, learns the true value of fatherhood. Read more about the book in NOVELS.
“Feeling bad” not an excuse or apology for raping daughter & granddaughterToronto, 1926: A husband pressures his wife to have babies for a large cash prize
