Popular culture is rich in metaphors for mothers as life-giving and delightful, with scant mention of the other biologically necessary parent. The few that exist are mean: Father Time (mortality), Fatherland (Nazi Germany), Old Man Winter, etcetera.
Groucho Marx said for all the Tin Pan Alley sheet music written in tribute to moms a century ago, he could recall a single dedication to dads entitled Everybody Works But Father. The lyrics went like this: “Mother takes in washing/so does sister Ann/Everybody works in our house’/but my old man.”
Into the breach steps Montréal novelist Heather O’Neill with Wisdom In Nonsense: Invaluable Lessons From My Father, a warm and funny collection of memories of O’Neill’s dad, a single parent. O’Neill beautifully recounts the point in all our young lives when the centre of a child’s universe is the space occupied by a dominant parent. Even trivial recollections attain mythological stature: dining on Pepsi in teacups, and Jell-O in a champagne glass, and delicious cubes of Camembert cheese Father O’Neill shoplifted from the local groceteria.
