Father

The ties that bind a father to his family -- and vice versa -- have always been a potent source of artistic obsession and literary contemplation, from The Odyssey to King Lear to Death of a Salesman. Now some of today's most talented writers -- award winners and innovative newcomers alike -- come together in a powerful and exhilarating anthology, a dazzling collection of short stories and memoirs that captures the unique and far-reaching spectrum of emotions that only fathers and fatherhood can inspire.Powerfully affirming her reputation as one of today's premier prose stylists, Pulitzer Prize-winning author Annie Proulx delivers the Faulknerian "Electric Arrows", a stark portrait of modernism's devastating effect on a rural family's patriarch. Through the subtle observations and vivid characterizations of "The Gun Shop", the inimitable John Updike quietly underscores the complex interplay of resentment and adoration attending every father-son relationship. In spare, staccato rhythms, Dawn Raffel renders an unforgettable image of a grown daughter and her aging father in "Somewhere Near Sea Level". And in an achingly beautiful memory piece, Ana Veciana-Suarez recalls her turbulent Miami childhood spent in the shadow of her papi, a strong-willed Caribbean emigrant.These works, along with a range of other compelling selections, combine for an anthology of extraordinary power and uncommon scope. By turns troubling and comforting, bewildering and revelatory, FATHER delivers an unprecedentedly rich and eclectic take on this most classic of all literary themes.