Take a photo of a barcode or cover
A review by herliterarylife
Don't Cry for Me by Daniel Black
5.0
I honestly don’t even know how to review this one. This always happens to me when a book feels like more than just a fictional story someone came up with and put to paper, when it feels more important than entertainment. The book starts with a note from the author, and the following is the first paragraph:
“When, in 2013, my father was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s, I knew what it meant - he’d soon forget what he’d done or said to me over the years. In fact, he’d need my sympathy, perhaps my financial assistance, as his memory faded away. For a long time, I had wanted us to hash things out, to speak honestly about how we had hurt or disappointed one another over the years. But Daddy’s mind left like a dream at dawn. And now the encounter could happen only in my imagination.”
So the author imagines his father writing out his history as a black man growing up during the middle of the 20th century, to explain why he was the way he was, and also his journey to changing himself and his mind to be able to give his son the love that he deserved. This is in a format of a letter from the father to his son. His son is gay, and the father struggles to accept him as “a man” because he was raised to believe that a gay man is no man at all and he essentially spends his son’s life mourning the son he wished he had, which of course drives a wedge between them.
This was beautiful and sad and upsetting and a little hopeful. The author’s note at the beginning alone got me choked up, and I knew I was about to read something special.
Read this. That’s all I can say.
“When, in 2013, my father was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s, I knew what it meant - he’d soon forget what he’d done or said to me over the years. In fact, he’d need my sympathy, perhaps my financial assistance, as his memory faded away. For a long time, I had wanted us to hash things out, to speak honestly about how we had hurt or disappointed one another over the years. But Daddy’s mind left like a dream at dawn. And now the encounter could happen only in my imagination.”
So the author imagines his father writing out his history as a black man growing up during the middle of the 20th century, to explain why he was the way he was, and also his journey to changing himself and his mind to be able to give his son the love that he deserved. This is in a format of a letter from the father to his son. His son is gay, and the father struggles to accept him as “a man” because he was raised to believe that a gay man is no man at all and he essentially spends his son’s life mourning the son he wished he had, which of course drives a wedge between them.
This was beautiful and sad and upsetting and a little hopeful. The author’s note at the beginning alone got me choked up, and I knew I was about to read something special.
Read this. That’s all I can say.