The February issue of Granta, the first to be edited by Alex Clark, is a collection of writing on the subject of fathers:
One of childhood's most furtively treasured games is to imagine how life would be if other circumstances had prevailed, and it is perhaps misguided to think that that stops when one grows up. Here, meeting fathers who were doctors, vicars, hairdressers, comedians, men who married in secret or more than once, fathers who have been faced with serious illness or bereavement, who laughed or smacked or left or made everything better or, in the end, died, feels as though it affords a fleeting understanding of why I am different from you.There are a few pieces online, plus a few online-only pieces like Maud Newton's contribution to the Portraits of My Father series, essays about a particular photograph of the writer's father. Interesting stuff, though I'm not quite clear what the prostitute was doing in Maud's bed for so long.
Granta 104 - Fathers [granta.com via kottke]
