The Ties That Bind: Seven Books about Fathers and Sons

by Chuck Augello
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7 books
When I started writing my novel A Better Heart, the focus was not on fathers and sons, but from the moment the narrator’s estranged father walked through the door, I knew their relationship would drive the story. As a reader, I enjoy following characters as they navigate the potholes of their lives, and family often presents the biggest holes. Our primary relationships are with our parents, and their influence is a big part of who we become as adults. Exploring that bond often makes great fiction. My father died of cancer ten years ago. In writing about fathers and sons, perhaps I’m trying to imagine a different ending.
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The Risk Pool

Richard Russo, 2011
The Risk Pool shows the importance of accepting and loving our fathers for who they are instead of resenting them for who they never could be. Sam Hall, the irresponsible wreck of a dad in this warm-hearted and funny book, is by any definition a terrible father, yet his relationship with his son Ned feels real in ways that most fictionalized father-son relationships don’t. Forced to care for Ned when Ned’s mother is hospitalized with mental illness, Sam introduces his son to pool halls, bars, bookies, drunks, and the occasional petty crime. Though aware of his father’s many faults, Ned can’t help but be charmed by Sam’s easy-going life, and even when Sam disappears for years, the bond remains strong.

The Shining

Stephen King, 2008
At age 13, this book scared me. As an adult, it left me sad. Everyone remembers the movie with Jack Nicholson chasing his son through a frozen maze, but in King’s novel, Jack Torrance is an alcoholic father struggling to care for the gifted son he doesn’t fully understand. In a rare tender moment, Jack breaks the Overlook Hotel’s evil hold long enough to express his love for Danny and urge him to run away—from the demons of the hotel, but also from the demons inside Jack. Perhaps everyone, at some point, is afraid of his or her father. In The Shining, love and fear are intertwined.

The Cider House Rules

John Irving, 2012
The most loving father-son relationship I’ve ever read features Dr. Wilbur Larch and the orphan Homer Wells, who becomes the doctor’s apprentice before seeking a better life at an apple orchard in Maine. Larch creates a fake heart ailment to keep Homer from World War 2, eventually conjuring an alternate identity to allow Homer to continue the doctor’s work caring for orphans and their mothers. But what if that life differs from what Homer wants? Irving’s novel shows how rifts between fathers and sons can exist without it diminishing the love and respect. Larch and Homer differ strongly in their beliefs on abortion, yet their bond is unbreakable. In a beautiful moment, both men gaze at their paired shadows on a hillside and wonder what their futures will bring.

Townie

A Memoir
Andre Dubus, 2012
As we grow into our lives, we become more like our fathers than we ever thought. This memoir is equal parts anger and love, Dubus II writing about growing up in rough working-class Massachusetts towns with a father, the well-known short story writer Andre Dubus, only a partial presence in his life. Dubus II’s rage is channeled through his fists as he assumes the roles of neighborhood brawler and family protector. Andre II is drawn to his father’s violent tendencies but also to the sensitive perception that helped Andre become an acclaimed writer. As he punches his way through life, Andre II learns to forgive, fusing aspects of his father’s character into his adult self.

Portnoy's Complaint

Philip Roth, 1994
Though often viewed as a book about Jewish mothers, Roth’s controversial comic masterpiece is also a portrait of an ever-suffering father whose hopes and dreams are tied to his son. “Where he had been imprisoned, I would fly,” Roth writes in the voice of his narrator. Portnoy’s father is a put-upon insurance salesman wracked with constipation whose sacrifices instill a constant, nagging guilt in his son. Readers empathize with Portnoy’s efforts to escape his father’s overbearing influence, but also feel for the father, who simply wants the best for his intelligent, talented son. When my own father died, my first thought was that he had worked hard so that my life could be easier. A father sacrificing for his son is one of the hidden engines of this American classic..

Fathers and Sons

Ivan Sergeevich Turgenev, 1998
In this classic Russian novel of the 19th Century, the generations clash as a father and son see the world through different perspectives, with the charismatic self-proclaimed nihilist Bazarov turning the Kirsanov family upside down. The father, Nikolay, is thrilled when his son Arkady returns home from his studies, but soon begins to feel as if his ideas, and he himself, are no longer relevant in a fast-changing world. Yet Nikolay’s affection for his son never wavers, and Turgenev crafts a beautiful story in which both father and son are intelligence, sensitive characters who earn the reader’s empathy. Published in 1862, Fathers and Sons remains a vital, relevant novel.

Last Night in Twisted River

John Irving, 2012
Here’s John Irving again. While his novels are notorious for their Dickensian plots, bawdy humor, and sexual politics, many of Irving’s books have at their core a strong father-son relationship. Last Night at Twisted River follows a father and son over forty years as they try to hide from a vengeful small-town sheriff trying to avenge the son’s accidental killing of the lawman’s lover. The novel highlights the son’s development as a writer, but it’s the father’s story that is most moving. Dominic Baciagalupo sacrifices his own happiness to keep his son safe, and as the two men journey from New Hampshire to Boston to Iowa, Vermont, and Canada, the one constant in their lives is the deep bond between father and son.