(no subject)

[cahn]

Please rec me books with dads who are major characters (important secondary character is fine) and for whom parenting is an important component of their character, with kids who are older at the time of canon (teenager or above). They don't need to be good parents, necessarily, and they can make horrible mistakes, but they should be (relatively?) non-abusive and clearly love their kid(s).

So far I've got

-Aral Vorkosigan (...I guess he's not super a main character any more, but he casts a pretty long shadow)
-Atticus Finch
-Andrew Wiggin
-Jean Valjean
-Reb Saunders and David Malter
-Van Hohenheim (taking the prize for not being a good parent and making horrible mistakes...)

...this is a much lower percentage of the books we own than I had thought it would be!

Comments

[genarti]

Madam, Will You Talk? by Mary Stewart is very much a romantic suspense novel of its time, but it has a dad as a major character! rot13 for spoilers for much of the book, though they're pretty genre-predictable ones: ur'f gur ybir vagrerfg bs gur znva punenpgre (fur'f n jvqbj, ur'f qvibeprq), naq uvf fba vf geniryvat nebhaq Senapr jvgu uvf zbgure (gur ureb'f rk-jvsr) naq ure ybire. Sbe n fbyvq puhax bs gur obbx vg'f frg hc gb frrz yvxr gur sngure vf n zheqrere naq uvf fba vf greevsvrq bs uvz. Ohg gura vg gheaf bhg gung ur'f flzcngurgvp, gur rk-jvsr naq gur ybire ner zheqreref vafgrnq, naq gur fba vf greevsvrq SBE uvf orybirq sngure engure guna bs uvz.

(Stephen King's The Dark Tower MIGHT count, but it's enough of a maybe in enough directions, as well as being a long series, that I'm not sure about reccing it in this context.)

Ugh, I feel sure I must know others! I'll keep pondering.

[genarti]

Whoops, sorry, I missed the part about older kids -- the boy in Madam, Will You Talk? is 11 or 12, as I recall, and ditto for the Dark Tower books.

[cahn]

...I am totally there for romantic suspense novels by Mary Stewart with dads. Putting this on my reading list! (Eh, 11 or 12 is close enough :) I just was looking for not-babies/toddlers, since parenting a baby is a much different state of mind than parenting an older child.)

I just read part of the Dark Tower! (so I could read Yuletide fic, lol) -- Sure, that definitely counts! (Boy, talk about fraught parenting, though!)

[wendelah1]

John Ames in Marilyn Robinson's Gilead. The entire book is about fathers and sons and grandsons, too. It's a wonderful novel, a favorite of President Obama's.

Ashoke Ganguli in The Namesake by Jhumpa Lahiri. It covers his son's life from birth through adulthood.

Charles Ingalls from the Little House books. The kids start out young but it's a long series.

[cahn]

Oh, brilliant! I read The Namesake years ago and it's clearly time to get back to it again. Gilead sounds wonderful and I will definitely be looking that up.

And Charles Ingalls! <3 Forgot about him -- forgot to check my kids' bookshelves as well as mine :)

[rosefox]

In Kings of the Wyld, which is basically This Is Spinal Tap in epic fantasy land, one of the major characters sets out to rescue his adult daughter, who, to his dismay, has followed him into the mercenary business. There aren't any significant scenes of father/daughter bonding, but he meets all of your criteria. The protagonist is also a father, but his daughter is younger.

[cahn]

which is basically This Is Spinal Tap in epic fantasy land

...you had me here. :) (And I don't need father/daughter bonding, really!)

[rushthatspeaks]

Quentin in Diana Wynne Jones' Archer's Goon. Well, they have a younger child too, but otherwise yes.

[cahn]

Ha, I didn't mean to exclude younger kids! You know, I haven't actually read Archer's Goon. (I did this weird thing where when she died I stopped reading her books because I didn't want to run out, which... I should start again.) That also reminds me that Wizard Derk from Dark Lord of Derkholm also qualifies!

[schneefink]

Otori Takeo in the sequel, The Harsh Cry of the Heron. A lot of the book is about how he tries to do right by his daughters and especially find a way for the eldest to marry the man she loves. He is... not very successful overall, but he does try. (I should reread that series, it's been a while.)

[cahn]

Huh, this sounds very interesting. I will have to look this up!

[mildred_of_midgard]

A String in the Harp! Pushes some of the same buttons for me as the Tillerman series.

[cahn]

...I remember I read this fairly young, and thought it was okay, which is almost certainly what I would have thought if I'd read the Tillerman series before I was an adult. I am going to have to look at this one again.

[sophia_sol]

The Girl from Everywhere, and its sequel The Ship Beyond Time, by Heidi Heilig, have a major secondary character who's the father of the teenage protagonist and their relationship is an important part of the books.

[cahn]

Whoa, I don't even know about these books! That sounds great! *puts on list*

[melannen]

This is tough! I thought it would be easier too.

-Various King Arthurs?
-Some of Heinlein's self-inserts, but that gets... weird
-Fafhrd and the Grey Mouser start having all their adult-ish illegitimate kids with various one-off women they had seduced in their quests show up in the later stories when they're trying to retire, which is pretty amazing
-Aubrey-Maturin's kids are teens by the time the series ends, iirc

...everything else I'm coming up with, either it's generational sagas where the kids are the MCs by the time they're teenagers (like Damia or Witch World) or it's stuff with a huge ensemble cast that includes parents (like Song of Ice and Fire. Although most of them die in that.) Or it's moms (or NB parents, if Fosyf and Celar count. They probably don't anyway).

[cahn]

(lol at your Heinlein comment!)

You know, it's sort of interesting how few present dads there are in Arthurian mythos, really, given how many guys are riding around (well, maybe the problem is that they're all riding around all the time). Sir Ector in Sword in the Stone is the only one I can really think of -- Arthur doesn't have a father around, the Orkney boys maybe had King Lot for a while, I guess?? (although my opinions on this are highly colored by T.H. White) Mordred definitely didn't have his father around, Lancelot ran off from Galahad... a bunch of deadbeat dads, here!

...I have only read like one or two Fafhrd-Grey-Mouser stories, and clearly I need to read more of these, because that sounds awesome.

Hm, I should do a similar post asking for mom/NB-parent recs, because honestly I had even more trouble coming up with moms on our bookshelf, although that... might partially be a problem with our bookshelf, because like you say there should be things like Damia and such that we don't happen to own right now. Also there seem to be a lot of dead moms out there.

(Although... I'm not sure Fosyf and Celar make my cut of not-crap parents, which is obviously super highly subjective given that Van Hohenheim made it.)

[nestra]

Ellis Peters' Inspector Felse mysteries feature his son, who ages from 11 to 20-something through the course of the series, and the healthy parent-child relationship is often examined.

[cahn]

Huh, this sounds very cool, I will have to check this out!

[ase]

Harry Callahan in Diane Duane's Wizards series gets increasing dad-time through the series. He gets some good screen time in A Wizard Alone and Wizard's Holiday. Warnings for major character death, details on request.

[cahn]

Ah! I have read Wizard's Holiday, but I don't think I actually did read Wizard Alone (and I know I've missed some of the later ones) -- I definitely need to go back and read, thanks!

[katherine]

A number of Janice Kay Johnson's Superromances have parent main characters. No Matter What is one that comes to mind. Anything for Her is another favourite; fourteen-year-old foster son in that one.

[cahn]

Ooh, this sounds lovely, thank you!

[skygiants]

In addition to the DWJs, here are a few others I can think of:

- Sholem Aleichem's collected Tevye stories, which Fiddler on the Roof was based on, are all about Tevye The Distressed Dad Of Five Teen Daughters
- the father of the teen protagonist in Angie Thomas' The Hate U Give is an important, present, and positive character
- Laurence Yep's Dragon's Gate is about a Chinese teen and his dad and uncle coming to America to work on the railroad (...in order to gain important revolutionary railroad skills!)
- Leigh Bardugo's Six of Crows is about hard-edged teen criminals! no parents in sight!! but then in the sequel Crooked Kingdom it turns out one of them has an incredibly sweet dad who turns up and takes charge of the whole lot and it's amazing
- Kate Elliott's Court of Fives trilogy spends a lot of page-space on the mixed-race heroine's complicated relationship with her father, who is doing his best to protect his family and messing up most of the time
- oh hey, does Daimbert count? I'm not sure how major a character he actually is in the Antonia books...
- this isn't actually out yet, but Courtney Milan got so taken by the dynamic between the protag and his dad in her romance novel Trade Me that she's now apparently writing him a three-volume novel of his very own

I'm sure there are more on my shelves I'm not thinking of now, so STAY TUNED

[cahn]

Ahhhh, Tevye! I forgot about him, how could I forget about him??

ok, these all sound great! Trade Me is one where I read the Kindle sample and was like, this is awesome, but then I never got around to buying it, I'd better rectify that

of course Daimbert counts WAIT HOLD ON WHAT IS THIS ABOUT ANTONIA BOOKS HOW DID I NOT KNOW ABOUT THESE!!!!

[duskpeterson]

As a lifelong young adult fiction reader, I am appalled at how few titles I can think of that fit your criteria. YA authors seem to be very fond of killing off parents.

Here's what I came up with:

Susan Cooper's "The Dark is Rising" (fantasy; originally marketed as children's fiction, now marketed as YA) features a large family with a father and teenagers.

Diana Gabaldon's Outlander series (time travel) has a number of father-offspring and father-in-loco-parentis relationships.

Following up on what Melannen said, Robert A. Heinlein's father portrayals are definitely a matter of taste, but I liked them as a teenager. "Farmer in the Sky" and "Have Space Suit - Will Travel" (YA science fiction) include some close father-son bonds.

Norma Johnston's The Keeping Days series (YA historical fiction) is about a large family, including a father and teenagers.

Madeleine L'Engle's fiction (YA science fiction and YA realistic fiction *with the same characters*) nearly always features husbands and wives raising kids, including teenagers.

Following up on what Genarti said, Mary Stewart is fond of inserting boys into her romantic suspense stories and having the heroes interact with the boys in a parental or quasi-parental manner; however, most of the boys appear to be fairly young. (She tends not to give ages.) One of her novels that does fit your criteria is "This Rough Magic," which features a loving relationship between an actor and his grown-up son.

[mildred_of_midgard]

I thought about the Outlander series and ended up rejecting it on the grounds that, the most major character doesn't get to parent either of his children, and the other fathers who do are mostly off page or only present in snippets: Brian, the Reverend, Lord John Grey, Ian Murray (the elder). Frank, maybe, gets some real page time as a father, so that would fall under important secondary character.

But you're right that there a lot of important father-son relationships throughout, and I guess by volume 4 Wnzvr vf svanyyl trggvat gb vagrenpg jvgu uvf nqhyg qnhtugre, naq cneragvat pbzrf vagb vg. Nyfb, fgnegvat jvgu obbx 5, jr trg gb frr Ebtre nf n sngure, naq cneragvat vf na vzcbegnag cneg bs uvf punenpgre sebz gura ba, naq ur'f qrsvavgryl n fhcre znwbe punenpgre. Hasbeghangryl, V ernyyl bayl yvxrq obbxf 1-4, fb vg gbbx zr n juvyr gb erzrzore nyy gur cneragvat Ebtre qbrf va 5-8 (naq jvyy cerfhznoyl pbagvahr qbvat jurarire obbx 9 pbzrf bhg).

So it might count!

[ricardienne]

This is so much harder than it should be! I can add:

- Abednego Twite in Black Hearts and Battersea/Dido and Pa almost counts. (He’s a pretty terrible dad, but Dido’s relationship to him is really important to her...)
-Annabel Lyon’s The Sweet Girl is about Aristotle’s daughter and her dad has a big role in her life although there as well, there’s a growing apart as she matures and her father starts to see her as a woman to be married for rather than a brilliant child to share his research with (general I highly recommend it as historical fiction),
-Star’s dad is a pretty important character and a very present parent in The Hate U Give

[ricardienne]

Wait a few more!

- the father in All of a Kind Family— in the last couple, especially Ella of All of a Kind Family, the older girls are teenagers or older, and the father is just as kind and loving and an important part of their lives.
-Johnnie in A Tree Grows in Brooklyn is an extremely flawed dad, and he dies when the protagonist is relatively young, BUT he’s so important in her life even as she grows into teenager and young adulthood that maybe he counts?
-I suppose Sabriel and Touchstone are active and good parents in the later Old Kingdom books.

[landofnowhere]

Late to the series, but I noticed that people had mentioned other Lois Lowry, but not the Anastasia series. The preteen protagonist's father, Myron Krupnik, is a poet and academic, which means that he's at home a bit more, and he's GREAT. The series has some excellent father-daughter moments.

[cahn]

Ooooh! This is one of those series that I honestly have no idea why I've never read, as I remember seeing it everywhere when I was a kid. Thank you!