June Reading Theme: Fathers

For June, our Reaching Theme is fathers in fiction. The good, the bad, and the complicated.

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Ride With Me, Mariah Montana by Ivan Doig

To explore the meaning of Montana's century of statehood, 65-year-old Jick McCaskill, his photographer daughter Mariah, and her newspaper columnist ex-husband Riley Wright tour the Treasure State in Jick's Winnebago. While Riley writes on-the-scene dispatches and Mariah takes photos of the places they visit, Jick, the narrator, recounts the state's--and his family's--good and bad times. A lengthy picaresque with innumerable well-crafted vignettes, this leisurely novel could easily serve as a tour guide of Montana's historic places. (Library Journal review)

Independence Day by Richard Ford (Pulitzer Prize, 1996)

Former sportswriter Frank Bascombe, divorced and now a realtor, ... sees himself in the "existence period" of his life. He lacks direction and carries on an ambivalent relationship with his current girlfriend, Sally. Over the 1988 July 4th weekend, with the upcoming Bush-Dukakis presidential contest in the background, Frank takes his troubled son Paul on a trip to the basketball and baseball halls of fame, leading to a serious accident that forces Frank from the "existence period" and into changing his life. (Library Journal review)

Branigan’s Break by Leslie Davis Guccione

Sean Branigan was a struggling single father, trying to understand the minds, and hearts, of his own two teenage daughters. So when sexy school counselor Julia Hollins called him to give him some 'friendly advice' he was more than a little offended! Worse still, he was more than just a little attracted to her. But Sean was not about to let her start rearranging his family's life, or soften his hardened heart. (Publisher’s summary)

Plainsong by Kent Haruf

In the small town of Holt, Colorado, a high school teacher is confronted with raising his two boys alone after their mother retreats first to the bedroom, then altogether. A teenage girl -- her father long since disappeared, her mother unwilling to have her in the house -- is pregnant, alone herself, with nowhere to go. And out in the country, two brothers, elderly bachelors, work the family homestead, the only world they've ever known. (Publisher’s summary)

The First Part Last by Angela Johnson (Coretta Scott King Award, Prinz Award)

Bobby is your classic urban teenaged boy -- impulsive, eager, restless. On his sixteenth birthday he gets some news from his girlfriend, Nia, that changes his life forever. She's pregnant. Bobby's going to be a father… With powerful language and keen insight, Johnson looks at the male side of teen pregnancy as she delves into one young man's struggle to figure out what "the right thing" is and then to do it. No matter what the cost. (Publisher’s summary)

The Assassins by Elia Kazan

Master Sergeant Cesario Flores is a troubled man. A career non-com, he feels safe in his well-ordered life. So when his precious daughter Juana joins the tuned-in, dropped-out generation, Flores breaks into little pieces...with murder the result.

THE ASSASSINS is set in the United States during the '70s, a violent time at home and abroad. It's about two specific murders, but more than that it focused on a murderous way of life. (Goodreads.com book summary)

Independent People by Halldór Laxness (Nobel Prize in Literature, 1955)

Having spent eighteen years in humiliating servitude, Bjartur wants nothing more than to raise his flocks unbeholden to any man. But Bjartur's spirited daughter wants to live unbeholden to him. What ensues is a battle of wills that is by turns harsh and touching, elemental in its emotional intensity and intimate in its homely detail. Vast in scope and deeply rewarding, Independent People is a masterpiece. (Goodreads.com book summary)

A River Runs Through It, and Other Stories by Norman Maclean

On the surface, it's a story about Maclean, his gifted but fundamentally flawed brother, their father, the land that they loved and the religion of fly fishing that bound them together. But it's also a book that has a great deal to say about the bonds that tie family members together and about the heartache that can result when one of those family members desperately needs help that none of the others is able to give. (James Thane, Goodreads.com review)

The Chosen by Chaim Potok

In 1940s Brooklyn, New York, an accident throws Reuven Malther and Danny Saunders together… Together they negotiate adolescence, family conflicts, the crisis of faith engendered when Holocaust stories begin to emerge in the U.S., loss, love, and the journey to adulthood. The intellectual and spiritual clashes between fathers, between each son and his own father, and between the two young men, provide a unique backdrop for this exploration of fathers, sons, faith, loyalty, and, ultimately, the power of love. (Amazon.com editorial review)

Empire Falls by Richard Russo (Pulitzer Prize winner for Fiction, 2002)

Miles Roby has been slinging burgers at the Empire Grill for 20 years, a job that cost him his college education and much of his self-respect. What keeps him there? It could be his bright, sensitive daughter Tick, who needs all his help surviving the local high school. Or maybe it's Janine, Miles' soon-to-be ex-wife, who's taken up with a noxiously vain health-club proprietor. Or perhaps it's the imperious Francine Whiting, who owns everything in town-and seems to believe that "everything" includes Miles himself. In Empire Falls Richard Russo delves deep into the blue-collar heart of America. (Publisher’s summary)

Fine Things by Danielle Steel

Smart, likable, Bernie Fine was the wonder boy of Wolff’s, New York’s most glamorous department store. A senior VP moving up, he arrives in San Fransisco to open a West Coast store. His career is skyrocketing, but his life is lacking a center. When he looks into the wide, innocent eyes of five-year-old Jane O’Reilly, and then into the equally enchanting eyes of her mother, Liz, Bernie knows he has found what he has been looking for. Bernie thought he had found love to last a lifetime, but when Liz is stricken with cancer shortly after the birth of their first child, time becomes painfully short. Alone with two children, Bernie must face the loss and learn how to move on. New people, new experiences, a new life alone with two kids. He meets it with courage and humor, and learns some of life’s hard but precious lessons as he does. (Publisher’s summary)

Father of the Bride by Edward Streeter

Stanley Banks is just your ordinary suburban dad. He's the kind of guy who believes that weddings are simple affairs in which two people get married. But when daddy's little girl announces her engagement to Buckley, Mr. Banks feels like his life has been turned upside down. (Goodreads.com summary)

The Optimist’s Daughter by Eudora Welty

This story of a young woman's confrontation with death and her past is a poetic study of human relations. "The Optimist's Daughter" is the story of Laurel McKelva Hand, a young woman who has left the South and returns, years later, to New Orleans, where her father is dying. After his death, she and her silly young stepmother go back still farther, to the small Mississippi town where she grew up. Alone in the old house, Laurel finally comes to an understanding of the past, herself, and her parents. (Publisher’s summary)