Five Books for Reflecting on Fatherhood

I have to admit: I have mixed feelings about the holiday called Father’s Day. It’s often felt a little faux and forced to me. Maybe that’s because being a father to two willful boys—both skateboarders, freedom seekers, defiers of authority—carried so many challenges that the annual one-day celebration of fatherhood made me feel like a waiter who got a 10% tip after a multi-course feast. Insubstantial. It felt like, “Hey dad, sorry about all the chaos of the past year. Here’s a card.”

Don’t get me wrong. I adore my two boys. And I admire their spirit, which I write about in my new book, Kickflip Boys. Writing the book was my attempt to explore my kids’ passion for skateboarding, but mainly to explore the questions that haunt every parent: Have I done a good job? Have I done enough? How do I let go? While writing our family story—and afterward—the words of other books on fatherhood provided comfort and commiseration that no Hallmark card could offer.

If you’re looking to tell your dad “thanks” this year, or if you’re a dad in need of feeling less alone, books that, to me, say something vital about fatherhood include The Beautiful Struggle, by Ta-Nehisi Coates, Half a Life, by Darrin Strauss, Hurry Down Sunshine, by Michael Greenberg, The Tender Bar, by J.R, Moehringer, Homegame, by Michael Lewis, and Kevin Young’s Book of Hours, a collection of poems about grieving for his father. And I’ve called out a few particular favorites below. —Neal Thompson
Product List
  • This Boy's Life Audiobook By Tobias Wolff cover art

    • This Boy's Life

    • By: Tobias Wolff
    • Narrated by: Oliver Wyman
    • Length: 10 hrs and 1 min
    • Release date: 03-28-10
    • Language: English
    • 4 out of 5 stars 714 ratings
    • When your dad abandons you, and your stepdad is a monster
    • This is one to savor. Don’t see the movie (it was fine), but listen to this when you need a reminder that you, your kids, your family...you’re all okay compared to the fraught adventures of young Toby, his resilient mom who divorced from his absent father, his battles with a ruthless stepfather, and a childhood of poverty and want. Like Mary Karr’s memoirs of a gritty and chaotic youth, Wolff shows that coming of age is a hard-won accomplishment, and that a boy without a father can find guidance and comfort in the unlikeliest of places.
  • Air Traffic Audiobook By Gregory Pardlo cover art

    • Air Traffic

    • A Memoir of Ambition and Manhood in America
    • By: Gregory Pardlo
    • Narrated by: Gregory Pardlo
    • Length: 7 hrs and 8 mins
    • Release date: 04-10-18
    • Language: English
    • 4 out of 5 stars 25 ratings
    • When dad is your hero, and then a disappointment
    • The author is a Pulitzer Prize winning poet, and this memoir sings with Pardlo’s gift for turning small moments into mini masterpieces of language. The story hinges on Pardlo’s father losing his job after the 1981 air traffic controllers’ strike, putting the family’s hard-earned middle class status at risk. His father descends into addiction as Pardlo rebels and flees. But it’s the poetic language that elevates the story: a sliding glass door sounds like the opening of a can of beans; shadows from a tree float over the street like kelp. So many blink-and-you’ll-miss-them gems of metaphor and beauty.
  • Pops Audiobook By Michael Chabon cover art

    • Pops

    • By: Michael Chabon
    • Narrated by: Michael Chabon
    • Length: 2 hrs and 16 mins
    • Release date: 05-15-18
    • Language: English
    • 4.5 out of 5 stars 54 ratings
    • When dad is still trying to figure it all out
    • In his 2009 book, Manhood for Amateurs: The Pleasures and Regrets of a Husband, Father, and Son, Chabon wrote a line that’s always rung true to me (and in fact is one of the epigrams in my book): “A father is a man who fails every day.” In this new collection, Chabon returns to themes that he’s clearly still processing—like the fears of fatherly incompetence, the mix of pride, love, and WTF we feel for our kids, the constant comparisons to our own fathers. This is a short collection, and nice companion to Amateurs. I thought Judd Apatow’s description in a recent New York Times review was apt: Chabon’s writing feels like a late-night talk with a friend “about how we love our kids and how hopeful we are that we’re better dads than we fear.”
  • Born a Crime Audiobook By Trevor Noah cover art

    • Born a Crime

    • Stories from a South African Childhood
    • By: Trevor Noah
    • Narrated by: Trevor Noah
    • Length: 8 hrs and 44 mins
    • Release date: 11-15-16
    • Language: English
    • 5 out of 5 stars 216,445 ratings
    • When dad is mostly absent, and mom is your hero
    • One of my favorite books of the past two years. Noah’s tales of growing up in late apartheid-era South Africa are both harrowing and hilarious, sometimes in the same breath. Because mixed-race children were literally viewed as a criminal act, Noah’s white Swiss father lived a separate and ghostly existence from Noah and his fervently religious, strong-willed, protective, and heroic mother. Noah performs this book more than narrates it, and his depictions of his indomitable mother are especially fun, funny, and deeply moving.
  • Beautiful Boy Audiobook By David Sheff cover art

    • Beautiful Boy

    • A Father's Journey through His Son's Meth Addiction
    • By: David Sheff
    • Narrated by: Anthony Heald
    • Length: 11 hrs and 28 mins
    • Release date: 02-23-08
    • Language: English
    • 4.5 out of 5 stars 4,422 ratings
    • When dad feels incapable of saving his lost son
    • I know, a story about a drug-ravaged boy doesn’t feel like uplifting Father’s Day fare, but Scheff’s terrifying tale of his son Nic’s methamphetamine addiction—soon to be a film (from Amazon Studios) starring Steve Carell as Sheff, Timothée Chalamet as Nic—eloquently and viscerally captures the fear and blame parents experience when substances claim and transform their beloved child. Ultimately, it’s a heart-breaking story about the difficult decision all parents must confront: how and when to let your child go.
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