The Dead Father by Donald Barthelme is a strange and surreal novel that takes readers on a journey through a dreamscape land of mythology and unconscious desires. The story revolves around the Dead Father, a once godlike creature reduced to impotent acts of meaningless violence as his followers drag him across the land on a final quest. Barthelme uses a variety of stylistic tricks to examine and satirize the myth of fatherhood, creating a narrative that is often tough going but with flashes of brilliance. The book lacks a traditional plot or character development, focusing more on bizarre and humorous elements that challenge readers' expectations.
The Dead Father is described as a funny and curious little novel that is worth the attention of readers familiar with Barthelme's unique fictional world. Despite its lack of traditional storytelling elements, the book offers moments of humor, wordplay, and wacky sentence structures that can elicit smiles from readers. While the writing showcases Barthelme's talent and skill, some readers find the book lacking in compelling narrative and descriptive writing, ultimately leaving them bored with the lack of fully fleshed characters and plot.
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Sensitive Topics/Content Warnings
The book contains themes of existential dread, family dynamics, sexual content, and absurd violence which may be triggering for some readers.
From The Publisher:
The Dead Father is a gargantuan half-dead, half-alive, part mechanical, wise, vain, powerful being who still has hopes for himself-even while he is being dragged by means of a cable toward a mysterious goal. In this extraordinary novel, marked by the imaginative use of language that influenced a generation of fiction writers, Donald Barthelme offered a glimpse into his fictional universe. As Donald Antrim writes in his introduction, "Reading The Dead Father, one has the sense that its author enjoys an almost complete artistic freedom . . . a permission to reshape, misrepresent, or even ignore the world as we find it . . . Laughing along with its author, we escape anxiety and feel alive."
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About the Author:
Donald Barthelme was one of the most influential American novelists of the 1970s and 1980s, bringing a unique postmodern voice to his novels, short stories, and essays. He died in 1989.
Donald Antrim is the author of three novels, including The Verificationist.
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