Assisted Loving: True Tales of Double Dating with My Dad

I loved this book so much that I have given it as a gift to many friends. Everyone has a similar reaction....it's simply great! Once you start reading, it is impossible to put down. The premise is unusual; the words are lyrical. This book does not disappoint......it is warm and funny and poignant....and speaks to relationships that we can all understand.

Bob Morris's father (not the guy on the book's cover!) is pushing eighty when Assisted Loving opens. He's a youthful eighty, though, and newly widowed, a retired traffic judge, so he's a hot commodity among senior singles. Not one to mourn over-much, he is ready only months after his wife of fifty-plus years died (in 2002) to start the search for a new mate. He enlists his son to help him, and the younger Morris chronicles his fathers re-emergence on the dating scenes of Palm Beach and New York. That's the plot of the book, but the dates merely serve as the framework onto which Morris packs a meatier story about his relationship with his father and about growing up. At book's end, Joe Morris remains the man he was at the beginning: happy-go-lucky, exasperating, utterly devoted to his son. It's Bob Morris who emerges from the experience a changed (to a degree) man. It's difficult to like Bob Morris for the first third of his book. His father may be legitimately annoying--most parents are--but at forty-four the younger Morris still acts like a teenager around him: pouting and saying just the wrong thing and not having much patience for the eccentricities of an old man. Worse, Morris is a superficial, elitist jerk. He's embarrassed by his old neighborhood, turns up his nose at his father's kitsch. He's irritated that visits with his father take him away from his usual party-hopping. Morris's mother had been very ill for years before her death. Morris was disappointed during that period because she lost interest in her appearance. He was ashamed to be seen with a dying woman who wasn't fashionable: "It was hard, watching her in her hopelessness. It was even harder seeing her thin, bruised arms and neck because she dressed in the most unflattering T-shirts." He dragged her out to Macy's to buy her new clothes--blouses, and hats to cover her thinning hair. He claims it made her happy, but it sure sounds like the new wardrobe was for him more than her. Morris may be a jerk, but he's also self-aware. He is, after all, drawing attention to his bad behavior and, largely, condemning it. In the course of hanging out with his father during the dating period, the younger Morris becomes a better man--still, it seems, someone whose instinct is to be impressed by the superficial, but a better man. It is impressive that Morris is able to alienate the reader at the beginning of his book yet still bring us around by the end so that he seems likable. Also impressive is the portrait Morris paints of his father. The initial image we get of Joe Morris is a negative one, a man as seen through the eyes of a son who has little sympathy for him and is still harboring adolescent resentments. But as the book progresses we are given more insight into the older Morris, who turns out to be more supportive than many parents are and wiser than we might at first have supposed. It's a powerful portrait. And Assisted Loving is a well-written, funny, and surprisingly affecting book.

Morris, Bob. "Assisted Loving: True Tales of Double Dating with my Dad", Harper, 2008. A Unique Father and Son Story Amos Lassen The name Bob Morris may be familiar to you as he frequently writes for "The New York Times" Sunday styles section and is a commentator on NPR. He has also written two picture books, one for children and the other for adults who do not like to read. But more than that, he is the author of "Assisted Loving" a delightful new book from Harper's. It is blend of humor and social commentary which shows both the grief at the death of his mother and the new found social life of his father, Joe. Joe has no concept of social graces and his humor is racy. His hero is Dinah Shore (stumps me too). At 79 years old he is a former New York judge for the state department of motor vehicles. Bob, his son, is a gay journalist who is quite lonely and has been thrust into the position of senior advisor and chaperone to his dad's girlfriends. Among the women that Joe sees are Gracie who is extremely serviceable, Rita who is a bit on the loony side, lovely Edie, Ann who lives on low carbs and Roz who is brilliant. Bob hopes that his father will find a patient woman so that he can about his life but soon discovers that for either of them finding a mate is no easy job. Bob even begins to wonder if he is pimping foe his fad. Bob's own life is frustrating to him especially since he is a middle-aged gay man (tell me about it). His father encourages him not to give up and the memoir soon becomes a love story about two men that teaches us a good deal about the gift and receipt of affection. Bob has never had a successful relationship and he also realizes that if his father is happy, he will not be lonely and therefore Bob can have some peace and be left alone to live his own life. As the two men interact they learn a great deal about each other and they are often both surprised at how much they care for one another. Reading this book is the same as having a good time and the book says a lot about love, pain and disappointment and frustration. We learn that love does not have to be perfect and that there are times when "good love" is good enough. The book not only opens the closet door on gay love but on senior love as well.

Every guilty son and daughter needs to read this book in order to get over their issues with Mom and Dad. It is a sweet, funny memoir that bridges the generation gap.

Really, there's nothing quite so funny as someone else's parents. And terrific writer Bob Morris does an amazing job telling the story of his father's search for a new wife and his own search for true love. THE perfect present for any father, or any son. Or any of the women who love them. Martha Frankel Hats & Eyeglasses: A Family Love Affair with Gambling