Introducing Bad Dad Tales

Reams have been written about horrendous mothers, but what about terrible fathers? In conjunction with the publication of my novel 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, must learn the true meaning of fatherhood, I’m collecting “bad dad” stories about real and fictional characters who fall short of the ideal. From ancient times (the Old Testament; Greek mythology) to the present (true crime podcasts; graphic novels and memoirs), there’s no shortage of cringe-worthy candidates. No doubt you have your own favorites drawn from personal experience, lurid news accounts, and imaginary demons. Enjoy my series of bad dad posts, and read The Great Stork Derby. Read more about the book in NOVELS.

Bad Dad Tales: Stories of real and fictional fathers who fall short of the ideal
Toronto, 1926: A husband pressures his wife to have babies for a large cash prize

What I’m Reading: Burnt Sugar

My Goodreads and Amazon review of Burnt Sugar by Avni Doshi (Rating 3) – Neither Acrid Nor Sweet Enough. I was frankly disappointed by Avni Doshi’s acclaimed novel Burnt Sugar. Her portrait of an artistic daughter’s abuse by her mother, now suffering from dementia, echoes too many others to offer a fresh perspective. As a visual artist, I hoped Doshi would describe the creative process of her protagonist, Antara, and render her drawings vividly enough for me to picture them. She does neither. As a writer (see my Amazon author page and Goodreads author page), I looked for finely observed details about the setting, fully developed characters, and revelatory interactions. While Doshi’s cultural commentary is intriguing, especially on the differences between the narrator’s Indian-born upbringing and her husband’s American-born Indian background, much of this rich territory goes unexplored. Nor did her images of Pune today, and the ashram where Antara and her mother lived during Antara’s childhood, provide the depth I wanted. The main drawback was that I wasn’t invested in the characters; ergo Antara’s secret and postpartum meltdown did not elicit much reaction. Burnt Sugar is neither acrid nor sweet enough to deliver a shiver of surprise nor the satisfaction of inevitability.

A novel about an abusive mother-daughter relationship
Why writers read: “We ought to read only the kind of books that wound or stab us. If the book we’re reading doesn’t wake us up with a blow to the head, what are we reading for? – Franz Kafka

Admiration and Aggravation: Reflections on Joan Didion

“In many ways, writing is the act of saying ‘I,’ of imposing oneself upon other people, of saying listen to me, see it my way, change your mind. It’s an aggressive, even a hostile act . . . setting words on paper is the tactic of a secret bully” (Joan Didion, “Why I Write,” New York Times Book Review, 12/05/76). Didion’s incisive writing filled me with admiration. Yet her skill at voicing opinions antithetical to mine, most notably in her early pro-conservative years, also aroused my aggravation. Didion’s scathing arguments didn’t win me over, but I resented her for being such a good adversary.

Joan Didion (1934-2021): A brilliant bully on the page

What I’m Reading: Oh William!

My Goodreads and Amazon review of Oh William! by Elizabeth Strout (Rating 5) – A Spirit Who Steals People’s Hearts. Oh William! by Elizabeth Strout is nominally a short road trip that takes readers on a long journey. Ex-spouses but still good friends, Lucy Barton and William Gerhardt travel to Maine where he hopes to learn more about his late mother’s past. Lucy is grieving the loss of her beloved second husband, while William has had several head-spinning shocks of his own (which I’ll leave for the reader to discover). In their loneliness and sense of dislocation, they join for platonic companionship and comfort, a risky demand at best. Strout excavates the relationship between two people who know each other well, although not as fully as they believe. They fall into old patterns that get disrupted by new discoveries, about each other, and most important, about themselves. While William often remains hidden, guarded with others and not wholly trusted by readers, Lucy is open, honest, and thoroughly likeable. As William says to her, “You are a spirit. There has never been anyone in the world like you. You steal people’s hearts, Lucy.” He speaks the truth. However much William has gotten wrong in his life, in this he is correct. As a fiction writer (see my Amazon author page and Goodreads author page), I’m awed by the range of emotions that Strout expresses with the word “Oh.” She uses these two letters to convey deep sympathy, sharp pain, a dull ache, nudging insight, and utter surprise. From the book’s title to its final page, Strout deftly deploys deceptively simple language to bring readers another rich chapter in the life of the resilient Lucy Barton.

Strout’s deceptively simple prose reveals the depth of the incisive Lucy Barton
Why writers read: “A good book is an education of the heart.” – Susan Sontag

A Midrash on My 75th Birthday

TODAY IS MY 75TH BIRTHDAY! A midrash from Rabbi Nachman of Breslov (1772-1810) says, “The day you were born is the day God decided the world could not exist without you.” I do my best to figure out what the world needs from me and to provide it, with kindness and creativity.

Celebrating a milestone birthday with gratitude and joy
Doing my best to advance world healing, Tikkun Olam

What I’m Reading: How Icasia Bloom Touched Happiness

My Goodreads and Amazon review of How Icasia Bloom Touched Happiness by Jessica Bell (Rating 5) – A Meditation on Mortality in a Vividly Imagined Future. Jessica Bell transcends the constrictions of most dystopian novels with a vividly imagined story that ultimately asks why we are put on earth and what our obligations are to ourselves – and especially to others — before we leave it. Icasia surprises herself, and the reader, as she evolves from being a shiftless “tatter” to a caring person. Bell’s futuristic setting is layered with an inventiveness that simultaneously evokes recognition and inspires awe. Her complex characters struggle with love in its many manifestations: parental, filial, romantic, platonic. They confront painful emotions: longing, loss, and despair. As a writer myself, (see my Amazon author page and Goodreads author page), I admire how Bell deftly juggles these elements. Her prose turns positively poetic at the end as she takes on the daunting challenge of defining something as elusive as “happiness” without sounding trite or treacly. If you want to know how you too can touch happiness, be touched by the wisdom in this book.

Inventive setting, complex characters, and satisfying resolution
Why writers read: A book can be a star, a living fire to lighten the darkness, leading out into the expanding universe.” – Madeleine L’Engle

One Person’s Loss: A Novel Is Accepted for Publication

I’m happy to announce that Vine Leaves Press will publish my next novel, One Person’s Loss, which asks whether the marriage of young German Jewish refugees can survive their clashing personalities and the traumas of the Holocaust. Set in Brooklyn from 1937 to 1951, Petra and Erich Wedler’s parents send them to America to start a family before the Nazis systematically decimate their community. The novel is told from both perspectives, as the couple find themselves at odds over losses — a miscarriage, the abrupt end of a job, the slaughter of loved ones. Confronting birth and death, their relationship seesaws until a final crisis tests their ability to sustain a balance and stay together. The book is due out in September 2022. Read more about the book in NOVELS.

German Jewish refugees arrive in U.S. on eve of World War II

The Great Stork Derby Virtual Reading on December 1, 2021

I’m doing a virtual reading of my new novel, The Great Stork Derby, at Literati Bookstore on December 1, 2021 at 7:00 PM Eastern Time. Author and colleague Danielle LaVaque-Manty will also interview me, followed by a Q and A with online participants. The event is free. No preregistration is required and you can join the Zoom webinar from anywhere. Go to the Literati event page and click the link on the page to join the event.

You can also order copies of The Great Stork Derby from Literati, as well as copies of my other novels, using the “Add to Cart” feature on that page. Support a great independent bookstore.

The Great Stork Derby, based on a bizarre chapter in Toronto’s history, asks whether an overbearing father deserves the chance to make amends with his alienated offspring. Widower Emm Benbow, who 50 years ago pressured his late wife to win a contest by having many babies, must now move in with one of his many children or go to a dreaded old age home. As he lives with each child in turn, Emm discovers that the true value of fatherhood is not measured in big prizes, but in small rewards.

Read more about the “bad dad” in The Great Stork Derby in NOVELS. See NEWS for information about other upcoming events. I look forward to “seeing” you at the event. Thanks for your interest and support.

The story of a “bad dad” and his dysfunctional family, based on a bizarre but true event

Semi-Good News to Share: St. Lawrence Book Award Semi-Finalist

I’m pleased to report that I was named a semi-finalist in the 2021 St. Lawrence Book Award for my story collection Women, Working. Visit the Black Lawrence Press website for the list of finalists and semi-finalists .

About the book: The fourteen stories collected in Women, Working dramatize women’s ongoing fight to balance work and family, intimacy and independence, tradition and progress. Spanning two centuries, the narratives highlight a forward march impeded by social upheaval, physical and psychological assault, and patriarchal resistance. The women — including an 1820 mill worker, a 1911 Triangle fire survivor, a Depression packhorse librarian, a chicken catcher in feminism’s early days, a contemporary trucker — are notably different, yet they share an unsinkable spirit, unflagging determination, and unwavering peer support.

Click on SHORT STORIES to read more.

The unexpected good news encourages me to submit the collection elsewhere. Wish me luck!

A notable independent press
Why writers write: “To survive, you must tell stories.” – Umberto Eco)

What I’m Reading: Inseparable by Simone de Beauvoir

My Goodreads and Amazon review of Inseparable: A Never-Before Published Novel by Simone de Beauvoir (Rating 4) – Sartre Was Wrong! Inseparable, a heretofore unpublished novel by Simone de Beauvoir, is worth reading for Margaret Atwood’s introduction alone. There readers learn that de Beauvoir decided not to publish the book after the “great” Jean Paul Sartre dismissed its focus on the lives of young women as uninteresting and unworthy compared to existentialism’s significant themes. Sartre was wrong. The book IS indeed about the search for a raison d’être, among women living within the confines of religious, social, and intellectual expectations of post-WWI France. What transforms the book from didacticism into a moving novel is the story of the intense love the narrator Sylvie feels for her schoolmate Andrée, a lively rebel who is nevertheless bound by duty to her mother, social class, and God. The characters are barely disguised versions of de Beauvoir herself and her childhood friend Zaza. The novel captures the asexual passion that women carry for their girlfriends. Any woman who has been devastated by the end of such a relationship — whether from an irreparable rift, diverging lives, or death — will understand the enormity of the lingering fixation on the beloved and the pain of losing her. As a writer of historical fiction (see my Amazon author page and Goodreads author page), I admire how the picture of a particular place and time is balanced with universal portraits of unforgettable individuals. Just as Andrée (Zaza) stayed with Sylvie (Simone) for the rest of her life, so will the friendship between these inseparable girls live on in readers.

An unforgettable friendship
Why writers read: “Nineteen pounds of old books are at least nineteen times as delicious as one pound of fresh caviar.” – Anne Fadiman