Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
Dennis Holland delivers a well-paced, entertaining performance of Barthelme's classic. As the titular character-the Dead Father, a huge, half-dead, semimechanical godlike ruler-is dragged by a group of his children across his lands toward his burial spot, bizarre and increasingly absurd exploits and conversations unfold. Holland, a seasoned reader of Barthelme's work, does ample justice to the tone and spirit of the text. His comedic timing is superb, as is his voice for the Dead Father. While the narration will delight Dead Father devotees, listeners less familiar with the author's work may be confused by the novel's experimental style and unconventional plot structure, which transitions unsteadily to audio book. A Farrar, Straus & Giroux paperback. (Feb.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Review by Library Journal Review
Barthelme's odd 1975 novel offers a variety of styles and ponders numerous subjects as it depicts a group of people dragging a carcass across the countryside. For the lit crowd. (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
(c) Copyright Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Review by Kirkus Book Review
A few years ago Barthelme said, ""the collage is the central artistic mode of our time."" The Dead Father, his first novel since Snow White, is of course a collage. Perhaps using more paste in the beginning--the paste which makes it possible to ""not only make a treasure out of trash"" (as Gass once said) but to put together a whole gobbledybook of chaotic irrelevancies, pollinating words such as ""hunkwash"" or ""great endifarce teeterteeterteetertottering,"" unexpected sidetrips (a grove of musicians with a thesaurus of instruments, a jungle of wildebeests) and the special Barthelme touchstone which has been officially categorized as blague. In fewer and simpler words--all that the narrative requires--the dead father (be he father, be he God, be he dead) is a giant 3200-cubit construct or concept lugged across the countryside by two young people. He is ""dead but still with us, still with us but dead,"" issuing ukases in his golden robes, strung up on cables he sometimes escapes. He has one mechanical leg and a seven-meter-high foot which enables him to extend the experience of the technological world via its glorious prosthetics. The schlepp is a little slower and the parody more intellectualized at first. But by the time you reach ""A Manual for Sons,"" Barthelme is at his playful best: i.e., ""To find a lost father: the first problem in finding a lost father is to lose him, decisively. . ."" while the will (""a good deal of handwashing there"") and the interment--covered with admiration and good black earth--is a triumphant terminus. Barthelme admirers should find this as entertaining as anything he has written in years. Tease the meanings in any direction, or don't--if you're lazy, but enjoy it for the nonesuch blague that it is scattering ashes of truth here and there. Copyright ©Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
