Paternity
photo provided by author
An excerpted chapter from David Shields’s forthcoming book, The Very Last Interview (NYRB, 2022).
Man is weak, and when he makes strength his profession, he is weaker.—Antonio Porchia
So you’re a son, obviously, but you’re also a father. Do you agree that all male writers are finally either sons or fathers? For example, Thomas Mann was a father; Kafka was a son—see what I mean?
Or Obama saying that all men are trying either to win their father’s admiration or overcome their father’s mistakes—where do you fall in the patrilineal line-up? Obama said he was doing both, of course.
You have only one child—is there a cruelty involved in such a decision?
A selfishness, I suppose is what I mean?
How do you and your daughter get along now that she’s 27 and an accomplished memoirist in her own right?
In this regard, how easy is it to swallow a bit of your own medicine?
Where does she live now?
How about you?
Primarily in your own head, I’m venturing?
What sort of parent was your father?
He was in and out of mental hospitals your whole life, is that correct?
Thirty-three shock treatments over 99 years—almost impressive, in a way, isn’t it?
Do you see yourself inheriting his bipolarity to any degree?
Is that why you take such a high-powered SSRI, to ward off the demons?
Does your daughter ever worry that the bipolarity has skipped a generation?
How do you deal with that worry on her part?
Are you close to her, would you say?
What sort of father are you compared to your father—please tell me not equally AWOL?
How is that going—your new relationship with your half-brother, whom you barely knew until you were 50?
When your dad died, did you cry?
Why not?
But you did go through a weird psychosomatic illness at that time—some sort of high fever?
Do you and your half-brother compare notes on your father from different points of view?
How old was your father when you were born?
Was that uber-awkward—people thinking he was your grandfather?
How have you tried to make amends for that?
How old were you when your daughter was born?
Same age as you—your wife?
Are you still married?
Your thirtieth anniversary would have been next year; what gemstone is associated with the event if the couple is divorced?
Are you aware that your daughter identifies herself on her Instagram page as “kinda jock, kinda emo”?
Ring any bells?
Do you have a philosophy of fatherhood?
A teleology, I suppose I’m asking?
What do you think of Borges’s view that to replicate oneself via paternity is an act of vulgarity?
Do you find the truism true—children never want to read their parents’ books?
Any explanation for this phenomenon?
To me, “father” means distracted; what does it mean to you?
“Vacant”? Yoiks.
How did you react when a translator of one of your books asked you if “Daddums” meant “molten fool”?
Would you call your father a man of letters, journalist, ad man, publicist, gun for hire, or hack?
Shit My Dad Says is disposable piffle; why do you persist in praising it?
How did you avoid serving in Vietnam?
Oh, so when were you born?
“A part of me has been born that never would have been born if I hadn’t had the chance to gaze at my infant child”—can you react, please?
Are you in a sense addicted to crisis or at least tension, and how have you avoided (if you have) passing this tendency on to your daughter?
Oh, I see—a “blunted affect”?
Have you escaped the liar’s paradox or the narcissist’s dilemma, is, I suppose, what I’m asking?
Do you hate or love Schopenhauer’s dictum “The truth shall prevail, though the world perish”?
How about you—how badly do you want to perish?
To what extent, if any, do you gild the lily when speaking to your daughter?
Do you discuss these issues with other men, other fathers, other writers?
Is love the answer?