Product Description

This is Blake Morrison's memoir of his father, Dr Arthur Morrison. It shows a son asking who his father really was. Was he the man seen through a seven-year-old's eyes, jumping queues, or the sexual charmer seen by a 17-year-old? Or was he the figure, so hard to recognize, on his death-bed?

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #151719 in Books
• Published on: 1998-01-12
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 224 pages

Customer Reviews

Words can't describe
Possibly the best book I've ever read in my life. I have read it so many times, yet each time I do, it's like a new book over again. Blake Morrison's fantastic book saved me through the death of my grandad in more or less exact circumstances to that of Blake Morrison's father. An unbelievably comforting book.

Compulsory reading if your father has died
I read this book, like many others have, not long after my own father died. I was stunned by the shared experiences. Things I would not have thought about without the experience... why does his hair keep growing when the rest of his body has stopped, hasn't the rest of his body told his hair to die? This book made me realise that I was not the first person in the world to go through this rite of passage.

A son's description of his father's death
Written with feeling, but not overblown with sensitivity, this is the sort of book that will appeal greatly to those who have lost a parent. When Morrison suggests that it's like joining a club, in much the same way as childbirth represents a new phase of life to most people, he hits the nail on the head. This is Morrison, like other members of the club, having to face up to maturity and the realities of life and death.

It is well written and compulsive. Not seeking to attract empathy or any particular emotion at all from the reader, for his father, the book is written to allow him to express the contradictions of his relationship with his father.

Well worth the read