fathers and daughters
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Body of Words
Standing at the pool’s edge, he planted his eyes on the V-shape of my body where my legs met at my hips, where I felt the water drip. I saw his brown irises turn hard and hungry.
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The Saturday Rumpus Essay: Reading Don Quijote with My Mother
“That’s the anthem I would have sung at my original graduation if the university had stayed open,” my mother said.
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The Rumpus Interview with Sarah Tomlinson
Author Sarah Tomlinson talks about ghostwriting, her father and childhood, the tradition of confessional writing, and her new memoir, Good Girl.
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Thebes
The tragedy of a mentally ill mind or a richly realized fantasy is that its world exists only for its inventor. It is the loneliest party, the most isolating game.
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OG Dad #24: Kiddie Calm
Days when my daughter hates me, I console myself that this may be a sign of her discerning nature.
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The Saturday Rumpus Essay: Waiting for the Tape to Rewind
I started watching as if I were dropping by to say hello.
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Out of the Swollen Sea
I think of a story I might write: about a daughter who loses her father to the sea. She grows progressively more melancholy; her dreams haunted by man-o-war, stingray, and poisonous rockfish.
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The Sunday Rumpus Essay: We, the Crazy Ones
My childhood battle was already set in motion: to resist the vortex. To not go where he was trapped. To not trade his love for my life.
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The Part of Stories One Never Quite Believes
And maybe that’s the ticket: grace. It was the year I expected harsh karma. But instead, I called my friends from the gutters of Hollywood and they picked me up. Every time.
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Weekend Rumpus Roundup
First, Grant Snider considers New Year’s resolutions in his inimitable way. Then, Barbara Berman draws a connection between two recent poetry collections—famous German playwright Bertold Brecht’s posthumous Love Poems and The Book of Scented Things: 100 Contemporary Poems About Perfume, edited by Jehanne…
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Being Like Him: Fathers, Daughters, and Sons in Boyhood
That scene at Antone’s plays out one of my biggest fears: that when women aren’t in the room, straight men shift their conversations.
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Mac and Me
The last time I’d been to my father’s grave was the previous winter, for the dedication ceremony for his headstone. The wind gusted, bone-cold, and I didn’t stay long. I wondered if Dad brokered a deal with God to make…