Main

Contents

Excerpt

Reviews

Press

Colleagues

Readers

Internet

Purchase

Reviews

Between fathers and sons there often exists a barrier to genuine emotional contact. Sometimes they succeed in making a connection indirectly, even mutely, but fathers too frequently live on 'the outskirts of their families ... ' The strongest of these stories, and there are many, pound achingly on the heart, cracking the encrustations of culture and wearing down the walls of fear that keep us all silent and aloof. They open a way for us to be better sons and in turn to be the kinds of fathers our children deserve.

ST. PETERSBURG TIMES

Ralph Keyes, in his poignant introduction, details his own dealings with his dad, and how, over the years, he collected various writings on their fathers; the result is this book. ... Keyes has done all men a service with Sons on Fathers.

BOOKPAGE

A wonderful book that would make any day in the year a tribute to Dad. Keyes's selections of prose and poetry, memoirs and fiction began as a labor of love motivated by his feeling about his father but continued because he came to realize that the deep feelings and pent-up emotions of the writers contributed to a special quality in the writing itself.

SAN DIEGO MAGAZINE

[A] moving collection of essays, short stories and poetry by 75 men. ... Tears of lost opportunities run through this collection, because the sons' words were often written after the fathers died.

GANNETT NEWS SERVICE

An important collection.

LIBRARY JOURNAL

A collection of short memoirs in prose and poetry of various sons about their fathers. Some of the memories are positive, some negative, others a bit of both. Among the better-known contributors are Jimmy Carter, Lewis Grizzard, James Dickey, John Cheever, Bill Moyers, Lance Morrow, and Robert Bly, but those of lesser-known writers are often the most memorable. American in scope, universal in sentiment. More literature than social science. Moving, it deals with different stages in the life of the son-father relationship.

WWW

Authors from a variety of backgrounds, most parents themselves, grapple with recurring themes when they write about their own fathers:

• Trying to meet a father's expectations.

• Learning not to touch one's father affectionately, replacing hugs and kisses with manly handshakes.

• Competing with one's father, especially in sports.

• Trying to accomplish what one's father couldn't, either at his behest or with his resistance.

• Realizing gradually the terrible price fathers pay to be "good providers."

...if the writers in Keyes's collection are any indication, even those fathers who are intimately involved in their children's lives are facing their own struggle -- trying to be there in a way their own fathers might not have been, trying to become the role models they might have missed.

GANNETT SUBURBAN NEWSPAPERS

...a remarkable non-fiction book on the subject [of fathers and sons].  This fine collection of 77 short essays and poems is a literary rather than cinematic search ...

BUFFALO NEWS