Especially Father (A Pine Street Press reprint edition)

"Especially Father" is the author's loving look at her extraordinary and exasperating father and, obliquely, his generation. Mostly set from the early 20th century up to World War II, Taber's book recounts the exploits and foibles of her geologist/explorer father who is a whirlwind of energy, opinion, and confidence. They are both funny and moving. She ends the book describing a family reunion in which her dynamo dad and his siblings, now quite aged, still manage to exude a vivacity and confidence that make the younger generations pale in comparison, in the self-doubting times of the postwar nuclear world. She wonders if her generation, or any subsequent generation, could ever have that same self-confidence and sense of competence and rightness. Taber wanted to capture a piece of that era on paper. She does so, and the reader is left with her same softly haunting images of a time and people now long gone.