Celebrating Father’s Day

From The New Yorker’s archive: a selection of pieces about fatherhood and the ways in which fathers shape our lives. View in browser | Update your preferences Celebrating Father’s Day In 2010, John McPhee published a personal essay in The New Yorker about his relationship with his late father. In “The Patch,” McPhee describes their fishing trips when he was a child: waking up before dawn and standing beside a stream, tacking on angleworms and other bait, and fishing for salmon with a bamboo rod. These, McPhee wrote, were “my fondest memories of my father, his best way of being close.” This week, in honor of Father’s Day, we’re bringing you a selection of pieces about fatherhood and the ways in which fathers shape our lives. In a Personal History from 2017, Daniel Mendelsohn chronicles a journey he took in Greece with his elderly father to retrace the steps of Odysseus. In “The Ability to Cry,” the novelist Yiyun Li reflects on her father’s last days and her abiding desire for a closer relationship with him. (“There must be a thousand things in his life like the desert plant; remembered only by him.”) In “The King of the Forest,” Roger Angell recounts the ebb and flow of his relationship with Ernest Angell and details his experiences as a child of divorce. Finally, in “The Lion and Me,” from 1998, John Lahr writes about Bert Lahr and how his vivid persona as the Cowardly Lion, in “The Wizard of Oz,” contrasted with his more muted personality at home. (“His laughter was a comfort to the world; in his world, which was rarely humorous, we comforted him.”) However you spend the day, we hope you enjoy these reflections on the many dimensions of fatherhood. —David Remnick From The New Yorker’s Archive Personal History A Father’s Final Odyssey My octogenarian dad wanted to study Homer’s epic and learn its lessons about life’s journeys. First he took my class. Then we sailed for Ithaca. By Daniel Mendelsohn | April 24, 2017 Personal History The Ability to Cry If I shed one tear, I might become Alice, swimming in an ocean of my tears. By Yiyun Li | November 16, 2020 Personal History The King of the Forest Living with a father’s demanding spirit. By Roger Angell | February 21 & 28, 2000 Newsletters Sign Up for the New Yorker Recommends Newsletter Discover what our staff is reading, watching, and listening to each week. Personal History The Lion and Me The meaning of “The Wizard of Oz” and one of its enduring comic characters hits close to home. By John Lahr | November 16, 1998 Personal History The Patch A swirl as audible as it is visible. By John McPhee | February 8, 2010 You’re receiving this e-mail because you signed up for the New Yorker Classics newsletter. Was this e-mail forwarded to you? Sign up. Unsubscribe | Manage your e-mail preferences | Send newsletter feedback | View our Privacy Policy Copyright © Condé Nast 2021. One World Trade Center, New York, NY 10007. All rights reserved.