From the Publisher
Fatherhood: An Anthology is a "literary tool-kit for fathers," addressing such issues as: responsibility, fear, and loss-as well as infertility, sports, and the meting out of punishment.
Remarkably wide-ranging in its sources, the anthology covers 4000 years of writing-from 2000 b.c. to a.d. 2000-including fiction, personal letters, and ancient Greek poetry, as well as eighteenth-century childcare manuals, newspaper reports, and The Simpsons. Rousseau, Plath, and Shakespeare weigh in on fatherhood, as do Bob Dylan, Auberon Waugh, Samuel Coleridge, Homer Simpson, Franz Kafka, Kirk Douglas, and Sigmund Freud.
John Lewis-Stempel's unique anthology celebrates the joys of fatherhood and explores the responsibilities and vulnerabilities that accompany this most timeless fact of life. Humorous and insightful, here are the triumphs and disasters experienced by fathers from Roman times to the present day, showing how the role of "dad" has changed. Divided into sections as diverse as First Love, Fathers and Sons, Daddy's Girl, The Sins of the Father, Experience, and Patrimony, Fatherhood makes the perfect, thoughtful present for fathers and fathers-to-be of any age.
