My Father's Ghost: The Return of My Old Man and Other Second Chances

This book is about so many different things it's very difficult to know where to begin. It's a remarkably easy book to read. Remarkable because it is such a difficult, even gruelling subject matter--the deterioration and death of a parent--but the book is so gorgeously lucid, so vivid, that it's very hard to stop reading. Of course, it isn't just about the life and death of Charnas' father but about how little we know about one another, how horrible (though sometimes glorious) old age and death can be. This is a book about not knowing your father (a difficult relationship even for those of us whose fathers didn't leave us), about thwarted artistic aspirations, about the impossible choices old age brings, and the ways in which every human being has a story, a life, and some of the unexpected things most of us never find out. I cannot reccommend this book more strongly. I have not been able to stop thinking about it. It's a book that really can change your life.

This is a story about real life. An artist father of a writer daughter. A father who walked away when she was eight. A father who in his last decade of life became dependant on his daughter, the stranger. Don't expect saccharine, 'cause there ain't any. No sugar cookies and milk, this is molasses and tea: bitter, dark, and poignant. Revelations, yes, but not of the TV sitcom kind, which are easily provoked and resolved in half an hour. This is deep history, it's the sand in the backyard and the gnarled old olive tree. It's a story told with exasperation and something like love. A story told brilliantly. Thought-provoking reading for those of us with parents heading into their last decade -- parents with whom we share a bad history. Here's a woman who offers refuge to a man who is going blind, and who holds a menial job in a restaurant. She offers him a free home in the sunshine, and the chance to do art. He arrives on her doorstep and proceeds to be exactly the same man he's always been: cantankerous, rude, and skeptical. He doesn't do any art -- not by choice, as it turns out. He doesn't have the emotional resources to make friends and have his own life. Heck, he doesn't even have the ability to make his own dinner. It's a fascinating story, and Charnas is an amazing writer. We get an unvarnished portrait of this man, his daughter, and a series of glimmers into why he left her mother, and why he's such a crank. If another living situation would have been ideal, well that's too bad because they're caught in the vise-grip of American medical economics. He's here to stay, like it or not. Then when his health fails completely, maybe he's too sick to stay home, but maybe not sick enough for Medicare to pay for a bed in a nursing home. Do she and her husband bankrupt themselves to give him adequate care? Charnas' livelihood hangs in the balance, not to mention her sanity. Who hasn't been there? And if we haven't been there, we will be soon. For those of us with difficult parents, it's enlightening to see how one woman's choices begin to unfold. She's no angel of the house -- her own discomfort comes through, and she combats it with exasperated humor. MY FATHER'S GHOST left me with a lasting understanding of tradeoffs. Good parts, bad parts. What I could stand, and what I couldn't. I can't make the same choices she did -- unless, like Charnas, I have to. But the whatever happens, at least I'll go in girded.

This is a wonderful book, and hard to compare to any other. Sort of a biography (but of an unknown man, a failed artist, someone without any of the usual qualities calling for an official biography), sort of an autobiography/literary memoir (by the author of hard-hitting feminist science fiction, fantasy, children's books, etc.), a personal investigation into what happens to the old and helpless in America, a daughter's memoir of her difficult father... I'm not usually attracted to memoirs, but like Suzy Charnas' fiction so much that I gave it a chance -- and am so glad I did. It is every bit as gripping and absorbing as one of her novels, and, amazingly for a work that focuses so much on her father's declining years, it's not at all bleak -- there are some unexpected surprises along the way, and the lasting impression is an uplifting one. The book raises many important issues around family relationships and aging in America today; it's thought-provoking, and informative, whatever your age and whatever your relationship to your parents. (Well, perhaps the super-rich and the extra-young could give it a miss, but as for the rest of us, this book is important.) Undoubtedly, one of the best books I've read this year. In non-fiction, it goes right up there with Barbara Ehrenreich's "Nickel and Dimed". Highly recommended.

Suzy McKee Charnas always had a difficult relationship with her father Robin McKee who walked out when she was eight. Robin left behind 40 black bound journals containing mostly left-wing political ranting and long discussions on painters and paint, along with an occasional wisecrack. From her few childhood memories, thoughts gleaned from the journals, and the time from when Robin was 63 until his death at 81, Charnas constructs a haunting memoir. MY FATHER'S GHOST becomes a reflective, honest, and at times painful account of the journey from aging to dying.Robin eked out a living in Greenwich Village maintaining sporadic contact with his children. He was a man of extraordinary intelligence who had lived in true Bohemian poverty. Indeed, Robin sacrificed all for his good taste and artistic talent even while his career was unsuccessful. Then one day during a phone call with Charnas, Robin indicates that he is going blind. His daughter encourages him to retire, moving him to Albuquerque, New Mexico to live in a nearby "in-law" cottage. It seemed like a golden opportunity to get her lost father back -- a second chance for a father-daughter relationship. Charnas weathers the difficulties of living close to an aging parent with grace. She struggles with meals, housekeeping, and personal hygiene, and she worries over health issues and finances. During the first half of the book, her father coexists nearby, but the second half of the book confronts the inevitable deteriorating health and nursing homes. Throughout the memoir, Charnas recounts challenges, the pain, and the guilt of coping with an aging parent. Surprisingly, Robin finds his own second chances when he moves into a nursing home, lending the conclusion unexpected beauty and hope.Having had my own difficult relationship with a father who absented himself early in life, I read Charnas with eagerness and sympathy as she confronts the inevitable challenges of piecing together a relationship built mostly of hope and a few bedraggled memories. The contradictions of Robin's personality can prove both incredibly aggravating and highly amusing. Charnas weaves together excerpts from her father's journals and their shared story with remarkable skill, resulting in an absorbing narrative that readers will find enthralling. MY FATHER'S GHOST comes very highly recommended.

When Suzy McKee Charnas was eight years-old her father, Robin McKee, left her, her mother and sister to dedicate his life to being an artist. He was spectacularly unsuccessful. Contact with his children was intermittent but never broken. Several years later realizing that Robin was living a meager existence in Manhatten and had problems caring for himself as he entered old age, Charnas invites him to live with her and her husband in New Mexico. Surprisingly he accepts. Charnas writes eloquently and honestly of life with a father that in many ways was a stranger to her. Robin was taciturn, difficult and not prone to sentimentality, but there were moments when he and Suzy connected in ways she had never imagined possible. The second section of this memoir covers the last 3 years of Robin's life. His health has declined to such a degree that Charnas must find a nursing home for him. After a long search she finds an affordable place with a caring staff. The transition for both father and daughter is difficult, but even here, in the unlikeliest of places, there is a ray of light and hope no one could have imagined. Truth really is stranger than fiction.I have long been an admirer of Charnas's science fiction and fantasy work. Here her novelist's eye paints a mesmerizing portrait of herself, her father and other fascinating characters in her life. I sat down one afternoon to read a few chapters and found myself so absorbed in this true and complex story that I literally could not put it down. It is truly a remarkable work.Patricia Altner, author of Vampire Readings