Father and I

By Carlo Gébler

Book Overview

Carlo G bler's childhood was one of prohibitions: no sweets, no comics, no toys, no friends to the house to play; a childhood dominated by his father Ernest G bler's belief in discipline and Joseph... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0349112932
• ISBN13: 9780349112930
• Release Date: August 2001
• Publisher: Time Warner Books Uk
• Length: 418 Pages
• Weight: 0.35 lbs.
• Dimensions: 7.8" x 0.9" x 5.1"

Customer Reviews

Daddy Dearest

For a nation obsessed with memoirs (and I count myself among the obsessed) it's surprising that this title isn't generating more attention. Beautifully, sparely written by the son of writers Edna O'Brien and Ernest Gebler, this memoir is an engrossing account of life with a cold, emotionally brutal father who, post-divorce, does his best to set the kids against their infinitely more loving, kind and (much to her ex-husband's despair) successful mom. Gebler's father is less deliberately cruel than blind to his shortcomings as a father and a human being. Still, his ignorance doesn't stop the reader from despising him until, by the book's end, the same transformation of consciousness the author underwent takes hold in the reader. Pity replaces contempt, as we grow along with Gebler into someone who comes to understand, and even forgive, the unforgivable. All of it rendered in a lean and quick prose that's flawless but never showy. Far and away the best of the current crop of memoirs.