Father Heron – 24/08/2024

Permit me sentimentality this week – it is after all a bank holiday and sentimentality the bank holiday of cynicism* – for it was my father’s seventieth birthday a few days ago and, between libations, there has been a little time to grow misty-eyed about Mr Moss.

To him, I owe my love of two-tone brogues, of fine blazers and Belstaff jackets, of Victoria Wood, of junk shops, of black coffee, ideally from the Monmouth Coffee Company at Seven Dials, of Campari, ideally from The Troubadour whilst complaining that it is not what it once was.

To him, I owe the knowledge that one must never argue with a scaffolder nor reverse down the A3. To him, I owe my love of so many books, of reading and being read to and my ability to quote extensively, if inaccurately, from Catch-22.  

As children, he read to us from Treasure Island, Swallows and Amazons, Children of the New Forest and Gormenghast, starting, accidentally, with the third in the trilogy, Titus Alone. I think he read us Just William though of course Martin Jarvis did too. He read us The Rime of the Ancient Mariner on a cold holiday in Northumberland and we begged him not to. We were young. Had we known that the next holiday would comprise readings from Nietzsche we might have responded differently.

He knew the moments when we must be given something vital, some treasure that he was ready to share. I can picture the solemn presentation of a set of J. D. Salinger.I recall the first time I opened The Complete Molesworth, him standing by awaiting the laughter which would follow for hours. Along with my own copy of Catch-22, I remember where I was sitting, having just finished my GCSEs, when he gave me I, Claudius and Claudius the God by Robert Graves. Later he gave me Tom Stoppard’s The Invention of Love and (inadvertently or otherwise) converted me from a mathematician to a classicist.

Father figures abound in my recommendations this week, though none are like mine, a man sui generis who gave me The Thurber Carnival three years in a row for Christmas. I guess he felt particularly strongly about that one.

Death at the Sign of the Rook by Kate Atkinson is the latest in the Jackson Brodie series. For the uninitiated, Brodie is an ex-cop, private detective, desperate to protect everyone… one could go on listing clichés of the genre but Atkinson is having more self-referential and literary fun than that. Four or five storylines run alongside one another. I can never foresee how she will bring them together. She always does. But she leaves a few hints of another plot which you might miss. Death at the Sign of the Rook brings a whirlwind of characters to a country house where a murder mystery play is being enacted. There are dogs, art thieves, mysterious butlers and real tinsel behind the phoney. I adored it. What larks amongst the rooks.

Dogs and Monsters by Mark Haddon is his new short story collection. The first is a historical, minotaur-inspired story told from the point of view of the mother of the “monster.” Her son is no monster at all; Haddon uses the myth to explore outcasts, the power of rumour and fear of the unknown. Fathers in this one are very much the example of how not to behave. The collection explores our connections with family, with animals and with the earth and is an exemplar for how the ancient can inspire the new.

Small Things Like These by Claire Keegan needs no introduction. But, just in case: it is 1985 and Bill Furlong is going about his coal deliveries in a small Irish town. Attached to the convent on the edge of the town is a laundry and attached to the laundry are many rumours about the girls who work there. If you haven’t read it, you must. If you have, you’ll know that you want to re-read it. There is a new and very beautiful edition coming out in October. And though it is hardly possible that you have come to the shop without hearing us talk about Keegan’s short stories or about Foster, I’ll mention those too. Foster will stay with you forever and its last line feels particularly poignant this week.

Thunderclap by Laura Cumming is a book I have written about previously but its resonance continues. Cumming’s parents were both artists and with her father she shared a love of Dutch painters, particularly Carel Fabritius, creator of The Goldfinch. Fabritius died in an explosion in 1654 which destroyed much of the city of Delft and most of his paintings. It is the first of several thunderclaps in a book which brings art, catastrophe, family and fragility together. Cumming’s love for her father and his work and her joy in being given the same delight in art are wonderful to read.

I Saw Ramallah by Mourid Barghouti is a memoir about returning home, if one can do such a thing after being exiled for decades. Barghouti was a poet, novelist and non-fiction writer. In 1967, he was sitting his final university exam in Cairo, looking forward to returning to his family in Ramallah when he heard explosions. The Six-Day War had broken out. He was barred from his homeland for thirty years. He explores the toll it takes never to be able to plan for the future, to miss deaths and births, let alone everyday family life, always to anticipate when things may improve, whilst facing disasters.

My Family and Other Superheroes by Jonathan Edwards: Jonathan joined us to read in the shop in June, sharing many poems about family, including some for his father who was in the audience. It is a curious experience to write about someone, knowing they will read it or even watch you read it. One poem stands out. My father once wrote a play entitled Have You Ever Had Breakfast With Sophia Loren? Well, in Edwards’ poem “Gregory Peck and Sophia Loren in Crumlin for the Filming of Arabesque, June 1965” perhaps Edwards Senior came close. Perhaps not.

Sax Burglar Blues by Robert Walton also shares witty and tender childhood memories of his father but I must instead mention a poem appropriate to my sartorially-confident role model: Mr Moss has a growing collection of bright bow ties and Bob’s poem “Bow-tie” is a masterpiece of storytelling.

And to some favourite picture books:

Luna Loves Library Day by Joseph Coelho, illustrated by Fiona Lumbers: Luna is a kindred spirit who loves library day for the books and for the fact that she spends it with her father. Throw in a Campari and it sounds perfect.

Three Little Wolves And The Big Bad Pig by Eugene Trivizas, illustrated by Helen Oxenbury: this spin on the fairytale is a work of genius. The construction detail is hilarious, becoming more and more elaborate with each house the wolves build. There have been many Moss building projects over the years – a complicated three-storey rabbit hutch stands out – and when I announced that I was opening a bookshop my father moved in to build our brilliant table/bookcases on wheels. God, he’s proud of those castors. No big bad pig is destroying those.

Broccoli’s Big Day! by Mike Henson, illustrated by Sandra de la Prada: “the devil’s food” is my father’s pronouncement on broccoli. I think he tried to ban it from the house altogether. Will a story in which broccoli wins a competition for being the best vegetable convert him? No. But it won me over. Sorry to be so wayward, Father.

There is so much more to say. I cut the paragraph on T. E. Lawrence and the essay on Faulkner. E. Nesbit had the words. I think of the end of The Railway Children when Bobbie sees her father again after all that time and cries out, “Oh, my Daddy, my Daddy!” Can it really be him? The clasp of his hand assures her that it is. They go into the house and Nesbit closes the door to leave the children with their beloved father.

May your weekend involve someone reading to you from a favourite book and may you one day have broccoli for breakfast with Sophia Loren,
Lizzie

*I think that’s from De Profundis though, since it’s often quoted in our family, it could just as easily be from The Rocky Horror Picture Show.

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