When I First Held You: 22 Critically Acclaimed Writers Talk About the Triumphs, Challenges and Transformative Experience of Fatherhood

by Brian Gresko

Overview

From some of today’s most critically acclaimed writers—including Dennis Lehane, Justin Cronin, Andre Dubus III, and Benjamin Percy—comes a rich collection of essays on what it means to be a dad. 

Becoming a father can be one of the most profoundly terrifying, exhilarating, life-changing occasions in a man’s life. Now 22 of today’s masterful writers get straight to the heart of modern fatherhood in this incomparable collection of thought-provoking essays. From making that ultimate decision to have a kid to making it through the birth to tangling with a toddler mid-tantrum, and eventually letting a teen loose in the world, these fathers explore every facet of fatherhood and show how being a father changed the way they saw the world—and themselves.

“One of the first things I learned about fatherhood was that my father was right: it was hard and it kicked the shit out of your life plan.”—Lev Grossman

“I wanted to hold him. I wanted to hold him close and never let go. But we have to let go, don’t we?”—Andre Dubus III 

“Bridges are engineered. Children are worked toward, clumsily, imperfectly, with a deep and almost religious faith in trial and error.”—Ben Greenman

“If you counted up the nights I’ve spent dancing to ‘Strangers in the Night,’ those hours would stretch three times around the equator.”—Garth Stein

“The most surprising aspect of parenting has been how much my pre-parenting life looks like a cloud in the rearview.”—Dennis Lehane

Contributors include
André Aciman, Chris Bachelder, David Bezmozgis, Justin Cronin, Peter Ho Davies, Anthony Doerr, Andre Dubus III, Steve Edwards, Karl Taro Greenfeld, Ben Greenman, Lev Grossman, Dennis Lehane, Bruce Machart, Rick Moody, Stephen O’Connor, Benjamin Percy, Bob Smith, Frederick Reiken, Marco Roth, Matthew Specktor, Garth Stein, and Alexi Zentner

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780425269244
Publisher:	Penguin Publishing Group
Publication date:	05/06/2014
Pages:	304
Product dimensions:	5.40(w) x 8.20(h) x 0.90(d)
Age Range:	18 Years

About the Author

Brian Gresko is a stay-at-home dad and writer based in Brooklyn. His essays and journalism have appeared on the Huffington Post, Salon, TheAtlantic.com, the Daily Beast, the Paris Review Daily, the Rumpus, and the Los Angeles Review of Books, among numerous other publications. He has also contributed to Glimmer Train and Slice magazine. He keeps a daily column about dads for Babble and is currently at work on a novel.

Table of Contents

Foreword Darin Strauss xiii

Introduction Brian Gresko xvii

On Love and Incompetence Dennis Lehane 1

Daughter Pressure Lev Grossman 15

First Child David Bezmozgis 23

Hurtings Alexi Zentner 29

Nine Times (Among Countless Others) I've Thought About the People Who Came Before Us in My Brief Career as a Father Anthony Doerr 41

You Can't Put Your Arms Around a Memory Ben Greenman 57

Empty Rooms André Aciman 67

My Daughter and God Justin Cronin 73

As Long as He Knows You Love Him Stephen O'Connor 95

Father's Prayer Chris Bachelder 107

Taking Her Measure Karl Taro Greenfeld 117

Dinosaur Peter Ho Davies 127

A World in Which We Refuse to Play Bruce Machart 135

Our Birds Matthew Specktor 149

Your Own Worst Enemy Benjamin Percy 157

Arcadia Frederick Reiken 169

On Fatherhood and Separation Rick Moody 181

To Tell a Happy Story Steve Edwards 193

Paternal Authority Takes a Backseat Marco Roth 205

Zombie Father Bob Smith 215

Man, Dying Garth Stein 227

The Door Andre Dubus 245

About the Contributors 265

Copyrights and Permissions 273

Acknowledgments 275

What People are Saying About This

From the Publisher

"[A] fabulous new anthology of fatherhood essays...A true must-read for pros and expectant parents alike. It's cutting and honest and hilarious and sad, with 22 essays from some of our best writers, such as Dennis Lehane, Justin Cronin, Lev Grossman, and many, many more...The essays are incredibly refreshing because they show fatherhood in such a vulnerable light—the good, the bad, the frustrating, and incredibly wonderful."—Parade magazine

"These gifted writers charge full-force into the heart of fatherhood…[An] impressive collection."—Publishers Weekly

"This collection could be subtitled 'Profiles in Perseverance.' These fathers have fought the battles, and we lucky readers receive this collection of wry, moving stories."—Library Journal

"We lucky readers receive this collection of wry, moving stories."—Kirkus Reviews

"A collection of luminous essays by men on parenthood that are easily read and terrifically illuminating...Full of remembrances and half-remembrances of parenting in all its glory: failure, triumph, joy, tribulation, humorous bits and tragedies big and small...Readers will laugh, or perhaps wipe a tear; parents will nod knowingly."—Shelf Awareness

Editorial Reviews

"[A] fabulous new anthology of fatherhood essays...A true must-read for pros and expectant parents alike. It's cutting and honest and hilarious and sad, with 22 essays from some of our best writers, such as Dennis Lehane, Justin Cronin, Lev Grossman, and many, many more...The essays are incredibly refreshing because they show fatherhood in such a vulnerable light—the good, the bad, the frustrating, and incredibly wonderful."—Parade magazine

"These gifted writers charge full-force into the heart of fatherhood…[An] impressive collection."—Publishers Weekly

"This collection could be subtitled 'Profiles in Perseverance.' These fathers have fought the battles, and we lucky readers receive this collection of wry, moving stories."—Library Journal

"We lucky readers receive this collection of wry, moving stories."—Kirkus Reviews

"A collection of luminous essays by men on parenthood that are easily read and terrifically illuminating...Full of remembrances and half-remembrances of parenting in all its glory: failure, triumph, joy, tribulation, humorous bits and tragedies big and small...Readers will laugh, or perhaps wipe a tear; parents will nod knowingly."—Shelf Awareness

From the Publisher

2014-05-06
Nearly two dozen male writers contribute essays on the trials, tribulations and pleasures of being a father.Social commentators decry the rise of the "man-child" of the 21st century, who spends as much time now playing video games as he did when he was 15, couldn't fix the plumbing if his marriage depended on it, and so on. They're the men who can't find a single thing about their own character to question. It's an outlook on life that becomes difficult to maintain once one becomes a father, as more than one writer notes in this collection; parenting, like it or not, is a big "fun-suck." The writers here are a diverse bunch, and they've taken widely different paths exploring the human condition in novels, essays and journalism. In the ring with the young progeny, however, they are the pictures of confusion, punch-drunk and on the ropes. Dennis Lehane outlines how all of his delusions about adulthood and fatherhood were stripped away in not-gentle but also not-abnormal ways. Lev Grossman laments the loss of his life as a writer. However, when he returned to the desk, he found the writer not dead but transformed: better, stronger and faster. Ben Greenman, a little further along with a 12-year-old, writes about our memories of those foggy early parenting years, the sleepless nights and how we invent memories from that time that encapsulate events. Other contributors include Justin Cronin, David Bezmogis, Karl Taro Greenfield, Benjamin Percy, Rick Moody, Garth Stein and Andre Dubus III ("So much joy, as if my deepest, truest life could only begin once I became a father").This collection could be subtitled "Profiles in Perseverance": These fathers have fought the battles, and we lucky readers receive this collection of wry, moving stories.

Kirkus Reviews