Daddy Lessons: What We’ve Learned from Literature

Jonathan Tropper is known for his darkly humorous take on middle-aged family life. See: This is Where I Leave You. In this novel, he returns to a divorced dad as the central character, but one even more pathetic than Judd Foxman. One Last Thing Before I Go is a redemption narrative that anyone who has been truly disappointed by their dad can relate to. Your dad might be a total loser, but chances are he probably loves you.

If your father is going to be captured by Nazis and disappear, you’d be hard-pressed to find a better foster father than Hans Hubermann. This mild-mannered accordion player is described in the book as “barely visible,” “un-special,” and “not noticeable,” but these are the very qualities that allow him to hide a Jew in the basement during the Holocaust. Oh, and despite only having a 4th grade education, he teaches Liesel, our heroine, how to read. Talk about a life saver.

“You wanted to know what the bad guys looked like. Now you know. It may happen again. My job is to take care of you. I was appointed to do that by God. I will kill anyone who touches you. Do you understand?” This book is intense, but it delivers one hell of a lesson: If you are a child facing a post-apocalyptic world, you better hope that your father is as much of a badass as this one.

When Charlie Bucket discovers the Golden Ticket to visit Willy Wonka’s chocolate factory, bed-ridden Grandpa Joe leaps out of bed to be his chaperone throughout the adventure. Charlie’s father, Mr. Bucket, is a good role model and works his heiny off to support his family, but it’s Grandpa Joe who teaches Charlie to believe in the wonder and magic of the world. I sure hope I can still dance like Grandpa Joe when I’m 96.

Haroun and the Sea of Stories is a beautifully woven fairytale about a father and son. Rashid, the father, is a professional storyteller whose gift of imagination is in danger of being taken away from him. His son Haroun must travel through a fantastical land to save him, and return them both home again. Sometimes we don’t save our children, our children save us.

And while we’re on the subject of President Obama, have we ever seen a better father in the White House? Obama took office when his girls, Malia and Sasha, were 10 and 7, and throughout his presidency he has been forceful in his support for the rights of women on behalf of his daughters. Not only is he scandal free, he also cracks dad jokes in front of the entire nation. Obama writes in Dreams from My Father that his own father was more of a myth than a man to him. With the legacy this president leaves behind, his girls will not suffer the same fate.

At the beginning of Nick Hornby’s novel, About a Boy, Will Freeman is about the worst father figure you could imagine. He invents a two-year-old son named Ned in order to pick up women at a support group for divorced parents. He manages to redeem himself by the end of the book, but let the record show that preying on single moms is not cool, man. Not cool at all.