Stories of Fatherhood

This wide-ranging anthology pays tribute to fathers young and old. At one end of the spectrum, a touching story by Ann Packer tells of a man preparing for the wonder and terror of his first child-s birth, and from Frank O-Connor-s comes a hilarious tale of a small boy-s war against his paternal rival in -My Oedipus Complex-. At the other, John Updike-s -My Father-s Tears- and Jim Shepard-s -The Mortality of Parents- bring us face to face with a loss that is like no other. Maupassant, Kakfa, Nabokov, Edith Wharton, Raymond Carver, Graham Swift, Julian Barnes, Helen Simpson -all these and more offer a wonderful assortment of fictional takes on the paternal bond.