Our Fathers Reflections by Sons

by SHEPHERD, STEVEN L.

• ISBN13: 9780807062470
• ISBN10: 0807062472
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2002-07-26
• Publisher: Beacon Press

Summary

No one questions that men are profoundly influenced by their fathers, but the shape and substance of that influence varies with each family. In this, the first anthology of nonfiction prose to explore this issue in depth, editor Steven Shepherd has collected a diverse and invariably compelling group of narratives about sons and their fathers."Fourteen excellent essays by some of our best writers," says Anne Morris of the Austin American-Statesman. Among the contributors: James Baldwin, who reflects in his classic "Notes of a Native Son," on the father he barely knew, "partly because we shared, in our different fashions, the vice of stubborn pride." The brothers Geoffrey and Tobias Wolff, who write of their father from dramatically different perspectives. A second-generation undertaker, Thomas Lynch, who writes lovingly of burying his father. And the acclaimed scholar of African-American culture, Henry Louis Gates, Jr., who grew up with a father who "was not a race man," yet their arguments were vital to the son's education.

Author Biography

Steven L. Shepherd is a journalist, critic, and essayist who lives in San Diego.

Table of Contents

Introduction	p. xi
Notes of a Native Son	p. 1
Heavy Lifting	p. 28
Civilian	p. 51
Rising to the Light	p. 73
Son and Father	p. 92
Under the Influence	p. 115
Hyde Park	p. 134
Embalming Father	p. 154
Playing Hardball	p. 167
Picking Plums	p. 179
What a Father Leaves	p. 196
In the Kingdom of the Jalberts	p. 219
Blue Sky, California	p. 232
My Father's Fashion Tips	p. 248
Acknowledgments	p. 272
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