Gift Guide: Top 10 Brooklyn Father’s Day Presents
Books
Dads love to read. What was the first book that your dad ever gave to you that you knew really meant something to him? For me, it was Steven Millhauser’s first novel, Edwin Mullhouse: The Life and Death of an American Writer 1943-1954, by Jeffrey Cartwright. At the time, the book was out of print and when my father told me that we shared a look of disbelief. What, we both wondered, was wrong with the American reading public? But so anyway, that book remains one of my all-time favorites, because it is about writers, and professional jealousy, and children, and agonizing love (as if there was any other kind, right?), and death. It is also about death. You could always get your father Edwin Mullhouse, in case he hasn’t read it yet. That wouldn’t be the worst idea. Another idea is Train Dreams by Dennis Johnson, which is maybe not the most uplifting book for Father’s Day, but it’s not like I’m recommending The Road, you know? Although, I do kind of recommend The Road as a Father’s Day book, because that’s just kind of funny. Two brand new releases that would be great for dads (hot off the presses!) are Ben Greenman’s The Slippage, which starts off with a suburban party scene to rival anything that Updike ever wrote, and Benjamin Percy’s Red Moon, which is about the cost of humanity’s survival, something that every father has contemplated at one point or another.
Edwin Mullhouse: The Life and Death of an American Writer 1943-1954, by Jeffrey Cartwright Steven Millhauser
The Road Cormac McCarthy
Trains Dreams Dennis Johnson
The Slippage Ben Greenman
Red Moon Benjamin Percy