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I Had a Father: A Post-Modern Autobiography
by
Clark Blaise
A prize-winning novelist's journey in search of an elusive parent. Blaise writes that "even now I don't know if my father was sane or disturbed, a victim or a killer. I don't even know if I am his only child". He brings to his journey a novelist's eye, a detective's methodology, and an evocation of place unparalleled in modern letters.
Paperback
,
204 pages
Published
June 1st 1994
by Addison Wesley Publishing Company
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Community Reviews
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Sep 04, 2014
David Schaafsma
rated it
3 of 5 stars
Shelves:
auto-bio-memoir
,
father-brother-sons-book
It took me a long time to get into this book, and to finish it, but I finally did get into it, and finish it. Former U of Iowa Writers Program faculty member Blaise writes about his father, a philanderer, a liar, not warm or personable, not a talker, and he pieces together a life from scraps of memory and pieces of information gleaned from others here and there. His father left his mother and married several other times, and Blaise didn't even know if he had siblings, who many of his step-relati
...more
"I think our past never dies, and our future is forever claiming its place. I believe memory is but a form of futurity. My memories are pushing me forward. We are born whole, we fragment, but we try to re-compose."
In "I Had a Father" Clark Blaise tries to re-compose himself through discovering who his father really was: Romeo? Wife-beater? Furniture salesman? Boxer? Genius? Blaise is heartbreakingly honest about his feeling of being the wrong son for his father, his mixed-up cultural identity an ...more
In "I Had a Father" Clark Blaise tries to re-compose himself through discovering who his father really was: Romeo? Wife-beater? Furniture salesman? Boxer? Genius? Blaise is heartbreakingly honest about his feeling of being the wrong son for his father, his mixed-up cultural identity an ...more
Clark Blais' reoccurring theme in all his writing is a sense of loss for home and overpowering guilt. He is an enigmatic man whom I met a few times at the UoT reading series. Have you ever known someone in conversation that gives you the distinct feeling he's laughing at you regardless of what you are talking about. One of those people who you're sure knows everything about life. That is Blais. One time he signed his book If I Were Me with a teasing 'don't start with Doggiestan..one of the stori
...more
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Clark Blaise, OC (born 10 April 1940) is a Canadian author.
Born in Fargo, North Dakota, he currently lives in San Francisco, California. He has been married since 1963 to writer Bharati Mukherjee. They have two sons. A graduate of the Iowa Writers' Workshop at the University of Iowa, Blaise was also the director of the International Writing Program. While living in Montreal in the early 1970s he j ...more
More about Clark Blaise...
Born in Fargo, North Dakota, he currently lives in San Francisco, California. He has been married since 1963 to writer Bharati Mukherjee. They have two sons. A graduate of the Iowa Writers' Workshop at the University of Iowa, Blaise was also the director of the International Writing Program. While living in Montreal in the early 1970s he j ...more
