Synopsis
John Tremont, a middle-aged man with a family, is summoned to his mother's bedside after she has suffered a heart attack. When he arrives, he finds her shaken but surviving; it is his father, left alone, who is unable to cope, who begins to fail, to slip away from life. Joined by his nineteen-year-old son, John suddenly becomes enmeshed in the frightening, consuming, endless minutiae of caring for a beloved, dying parent. He also finds himself inescapably confronting his own middle age, jammed between his son's feckless impatience to get on with his life and his father's heartbreaking willingness to let go. A story of the love that binds generations, Dad celebrates the universe of possibilities within every individual life.
Reviews
"This is a great American novel. Wharton's eye is sharp as an eagle's; his pitch, perfect; his understanding of the emotions deeply moving. He reaches us, crucially, naturally, where we live."
Rebecca Sinkler, Philadelphia Inquirer
"Brilliantly constructed, immediate and moving, painful and funny, and finally deeply cathartic. "
Allen Lacy, San Francisco Chronicle
"For three-quarters of its intensely readable length, [Dad] is bolted firmly to the ground—and then it takes off into charming, heartbreaking dreams and wish fulfillment without once breaking the slender filament attached to a familiar reality. It is a stunningly good book."
Clancy Sigal, New York Magazine
"A luminous book...with each little turn, we see a new facet of forbearance and ineffable love."
Chicago Sun-Times
"John Tremont loves his old parents, especially his Dad; he loves them with a part of himself not many of us are in touch with."
The New York Times Book Review
Reader Reviews
“All-Time Favorite”, May 18, 1999
Reviewer: M. M. Petrelli "bookworm" (Lake Stevens, WA USA)
In 1987, I read what is still one of my all-time favorite books--DAD, by William Wharton. When first his mother, then his father, become ill, John Tremont attempts to sort out their affairs and obtain the best care he can for them. But the book is about so much more than that; it's about the relationships between fathers and sons, about coming to terms with a parent's infirmity and mortality, about letting go, accepting new roles within the family, and realizing that, when all's said and done, your parents are just people with flaws like everyone else. But most of all, DAD is about the final days of Jack Tremont, John's father, and how much John, and everyone else, loved him. Jack was portrayed so well that I loved him too, and I could tell John loved him the way I loved my Grandpa. Grandpa was diagnosed with cancer around the same time I read DAD, and I really identified with John and his feelings of grief, frustration, anger, helplessness, and his incredible love for his dad. It was the kind of book I wished would never end. A real tearjerker!
“Bowled over”, September 14, 2004
Reviewer: Dave Plassman "bookshine" (Moses Lake, WA USA)
Dad snuck up and bit me. I found it uneven. It is a book to be taken apart and studied in chunks. The sequence of the son caring for the parents was incredible; gritty and raw. So many questions raised: what IF you can't stand your own mother but you still have to live with her? What IF there is another and better dimension for your beleaguered father? What do you do if you find your father has pooped his drawers? What if there is no nurse to bail you out? (The image of a middle-aged man tanking out on pinched oxygen haunts me) Read this book and weep: this could be you and your life in a few years. Take what you have now and hug it tight. You will slowly but surely become your father. Wharton digs in and hands you the goods. No holds barred. I am a better though sadder person since I read his work.
“Upsetting and brilliant”, February 24, 2002
Reviewer: Warren Austin (Birmingham, England)
This was a great book and I would recommend it to everyone. It's deeply upsetting, emotional but not whimsical or sloppy like other novels of this genre. This book steers clear of the pretentious narrative [stuff] that we often find ourselves bombarded with. It's funny, sad and clever and should be read by all.