5 great books about fathers
1. To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee, 1960. WHAT: When Harper Lee created the heroic Atticus Finch and his chip-offthe-block daughter Scout, she created a father-daughter duo who would make history. Set in the Deep South during the Great Depression, the tale develops into a fierce courtroom drama as a local black man is wrongly accused of raping a white woman. WHY: This Pulitzer Prize-winning novel has become an American classic.
2. Dreams from My Father by Barack Obama, 1995. WHAT: Before he became a politician – and US President – Obama was a writer, and a very talented one, too. The son of a black African father and white American mother, Obama was two when his father walked out on the family. Years later he got a call to say his father had been killed in a car crash in Nairobi. WHY: A masterpiece of a memoir, beautifully written. The grace of Obama’s prose was likened by one reviewer to that of Abraham Lincoln.
3. About a Boy by Nick Hornby, 1998. WHAT: Will Freeman, 36, lives on the royalties of a mushy Christmas song penned by his dad. Set for life, he dreams up a toddler called Ned to bed women at a single parents’ group. When he meets misfit Marcus, 12 (whose mum is suicidal), Hornby hooks us in by the heartstrings in a tender about-turn. WHY: The Hornby male is instantly recognisable – he reads GQ and Esquire, and really does believe that he will never have to grow up.
4. H is for Hawk by Helen Macdonald, 2015. WHAT: When Macdonald’s father died, she took up a childhood ambition to train a hawk to cope with her grief. Already well versed in falconry, she embarks on an unflinchingly courageous journey with “Mabel” the Goshawk. WHY: When she was a child, Helen says her parents thought her obsession with hawks may go the way of dinosaurs and ponies. But at six she was singing “Dear Horus” (Egyptian falcon-headed god) in place of “Our Father” at assembly.
5. Farewell to the Father by Tim Elliott, 2016. WHAT: When Tim’s doctor father began his “terminal deterioration”, consuming a bottle of gin at night, there was no safe harbour from his rages, but the author still says: “He was a fantastic father.” WHY: Immensely moving and powerful. The book opens after his Dad’s first suicide attempt. Seven-year-old Tim throws his arms around his neck, him feeling like “something washed up on a beach, sodden and heavy”. KE