Family & Relationships Fatherhood
The Dad Dialogues
A Correspondence on Fatherhood (and the Universe)
- Publisher
- Arsenal Pulp Press
- Initial publish date
- Oct 2016
- Category
- Fatherhood, Marriage & Family, Men's Studies
-
Paperback / softback
- ISBN
- 9781551526621
- Publish Date
- Oct 2016
- List Price
- $17.95
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Description
Charles Demers is a thirtysomething comedian and the author of three books; George Bowering is eighty, Canada's first poet laureate, and the author of more than eighty books. Charlie and George are also the best of friends. And the fathers of daughters.
In this unique book of correspondence, these two men from different generations write to each other about the burdens, anxieties, and singular joys of parenthood. The letters begin as Charlie and his wife discover they will become parents; he expresses his hopes and fears of impending fatherhood, compounded by his OCD and his own father's illness, while George recalls his experiences raising a daughter in the 1970s and his anxieties about bringing a child into a troubled world.
Together, their thoughtful, funny, candid missives reveal what fathers know (or don't know) about raising daughters, as well as themselves and each other. Their combined observations make for a passionate, funny, and moving portrait of fatherhood in all its imperfect, beautiful glory.
About the authors
George Bowering, Canada’s first Poet Laureate, was born in the Okanagan Valley.After serving as an aerial photographer in the Royal Canadian Air Force, Bowering earned a BA in English and an MA in history at the University of British Columbia, where he became one of the co-founders of the avant-garde poetry magazine TISH. He has taught literature at the University of Calgary, the University of Western Ontario, and Simon Fraser University, and he continues to act as a Canadian literary ambassador at international conferences and readings.A distinguished novelist, poet, editor, professor, historian, and tireless supporter of fellow writers, Bowering has authored more than eighty books, including works of poetry, fiction, autobiography, biography, and youth fiction. His writing has been translated into French, Spanish, Italian, German, Chinese, and Romanian.Bowering has twice won the Governor General’s Award, Canada’s top literary prize. In 2019 he received the George Woodcock Lifetime Achievement for an outstanding literary career in British Columbia.
George Bowering's profile page
Charles Demers was born and raised in Vancouver. He is an activist and comedian, a regular performer on CBC Radio One's The Debaters, and former co-host of Citytv's comedic panel show "The Citynews List" in Vancouver. In 2005, he was the judges' choice for Vancouver's funniest new comic; since then he has been featured on national radio, in print, as well as in festivals and live venues across Canada and the Pacific Northwest and with Paul Bae as the sketch duo "Bucket"?the act Robin Williams called "the future of comedy." His book Vancouver Special was published by Arsenal Pulp Press in 2009, and was shortlisted for the Hubert Evans Non-Fiction Prize at the BC Book Prizes. His first novel, The Prescription Errors, was published in 2009 by Insomniac Press.
Follow Charles Demers on Twitter.
Editorial Reviews
An engagingly written look at fatherhood. Despite an almost fifty year age difference, Charles and George align on most aspects of what it's like to be a father, how marriage gets affected, and what babies are really like.
-The Ormsby Review
Confident and amusing, poignant and thoughtful ... Strong undercurrents--of dread, anxiety, and fear--contribute the sense that funny episodes aside, parenting isn't for the faint of heart.
-Macleans
A thoughtful, amusing book which should spark a lot of conversations about fathering, daughters, housework and diapers. -Vancouver Sun
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