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All Work And No Play

In honor of father’s day I just wanted to reflect on good dads and bad dads in fiction. Of course we all remember that Jack Torrance from The Shining was not exactly father of year. I don’t think I will ever forget the scenes of him chasing Danny through that haunted hotel.
And then on the good side there was… hmmm. I’m trying to come up with an exemplary father. Of course Harry Potter’s was dead, and Dorothy’s was dead, and Luke’s was thought dead, but turned out to be Darth, but in the end he turned out okay, I guess. Hercules had Zeus, and he was satisfactory in the father department, but he could be fairly tough. There was Pa in the Waltons and Pa on Little House on the Prairie, but I’m hard pressed to come up with a whole baseball team of fine fictitious dads.

Why is it so many dad’s are out of the picture in popular fiction?

I’m sure there are more examples in fiction; they just aren’t coming to mind. Because I have a great dad in real life, I guess I never thought about it before.

So on this Father’s day I want to say thanks to all the great real and fictitious dads. We don’t intend to take you for granted, but when you do your job well, we sometimes fail to remember.

Can you come up with any great dads in fiction?
Posted by George R. Appelt Jr. at 8:20 PM Labels: apparition, authors, books, Fathers Day, spook, suspense, wraith, writers, writing

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