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In every city there are neighborhoods abandoned to industry. Wastelands and disaster zones sacrificed to the greater good. As long as you can stand to live in them, they're one of the few places you can almost be free to be left alone.
I woke up one morning and found grey hairs in my beard. There were phone and electricity bills on my computer desk and I had to hustle to make it on time to work. Life had sneaked up on me and turned me into a man when I wasn't looking. On my Facebook feed, boys and girls I went to school with are posing proudly with their children. I don't know why I didn't give in to fatherhood yet. Maybe it's the last great boundary between me and being my dad. Not that I have any unresolved grudge with him, but I understand that fatherhood is something that changes a man. CRY FATHER, by Benjamin Whitmer, is an intense, powerful and thoroughly masculine novel about the dominion that fatherhood takes over the lives of several men. So far, it's been one of my favourite reads of 2014.
CRY FATHER is the story of Patterson Wells, who is struggling to move on since the death of his son. He works as a tree clearer in disaster zones. Before going home after the season, Patterson arranges a fishing trip with a coworker, who he finds stoned out of his mind on meth, with a woman hog-tied in his bathtub. Setting her free and going home are two decisions that are going to change Patterson's life. This earnest decision is the beginning of a chain of events that'll challenge the way he perceives himself. There's also Junior. An angry young man related to one of Patterson's neighbours. He takes interest in Junior, who's living in the same violent and desolate world he knows all too well.
Let me get this out of the way first, Benjamin Whitmer is a terrific wordsmith. The man has an impressive command of language. He creates strong images out of a couple words, implies wordless bonds out of a couple of lines of dialogues. I was beyond impressed. CRY FATHER made me forget about time, food and responsibility. One night, I realized it was time to stop reading because the room went dark. I had planned to read one or two chapters and ended up having a three hours binge. I had to pace myself not to read it too fast. It's the absolute best feeling for a reader.
Here's an example of a terrific scene that tells you just enough to let you figure it out:
CRY FATHER is the story of Patterson Wells, who is struggling to move on since the death of his son. He works as a tree clearer in disaster zones. Before going home after the season, Patterson arranges a fishing trip with a coworker, who he finds stoned out of his mind on meth, with a woman hog-tied in his bathtub. Setting her free and going home are two decisions that are going to change Patterson's life. This earnest decision is the beginning of a chain of events that'll challenge the way he perceives himself. There's also Junior. An angry young man related to one of Patterson's neighbours. He takes interest in Junior, who's living in the same violent and desolate world he knows all too well.
Let me get this out of the way first, Benjamin Whitmer is a terrific wordsmith. The man has an impressive command of language. He creates strong images out of a couple words, implies wordless bonds out of a couple of lines of dialogues. I was beyond impressed. CRY FATHER made me forget about time, food and responsibility. One night, I realized it was time to stop reading because the room went dark. I had planned to read one or two chapters and ended up having a three hours binge. I had to pace myself not to read it too fast. It's the absolute best feeling for a reader.
Here's an example of a terrific scene that tells you just enough to let you figure it out:
When she's gone, Port-Wine Stain lifts his beer at Patterson. ''Looks like you got her all figured out.'
''I ain't got anything figured out,'' Patterson says.
''Sure you do.'' His ruined face carries all the price and guts that comes with living in a town full of crumbling factories. ''This ain't your bar, buddy. This ain't even your fucking town.'' He fumbles his shirt up, his hand shaking with alcoholic palsy. A snub-nose .38, shelves in a white roll of fat.
''Settle down, Vince,'' the bartender says to him. ''You ain't shooting anyone in here.''
That said, lots of dudes will ''get'' CRY FATHER, but I'm sure it's going to leave some female readers puzzled. I feel like Captain Sexist for saying this, but hear me out, please. A lot of men have these dark, unspoken insecurities. We don't do well with our own sadness and anger, yet we express it in a very particular way: we avoid the source of problems, we run away and we're looking for answers in plenty of things that we think are unrelated. Benjamin Whitmer understands very well how men live through negative emotion and CRY FATHER illustrates it in all its complexity. I lost the count of times where I cracked a smile and shook my head because I understood exactly what went through Patterson's mind without needing an explanation. It's a good thing because there is very little exposition in that book. Lots of it is unspoken, symbolic and extremely masculine.
I'm going to let you figure out for yourselves how fatherhood plays out in CRY FATHER. Benjamin Whitmer makes a clear distinction of what it means to be a father to him at the beginning and part of the fun of reading the novel is to discover the many ways that Whitmer's definition of fatherhood is represented. It's fun, stimulating and beautiful all at one and it's through this definition that you can see the big picture, the intrinsic coherence of CRY FATHER.
If I poke really hard, the biggest downside I can find to CRY FATHER is that the narrative is a little chaotic. I didn't really care, though. To a certain extent, it could read like a series of vignettes. Think Kevin Smith's CLERKS, but serious and hyperviolent. I also loved that there wasn't a point A to point B story, per se, and that it was more about Patterson and the process of understandin his own pain. There is a climax and all that jazz, but CRY FATHER is not bound by narrative conventions in any way. Benjamin Whitmer is a fine observer of the human condition and this novel will feel true to many readers because it understands the thought process of human beings remarkably well. CRY FATHER is one of these novels that I call ''an emotional experience''. I read to find stories like these and I'm happy to have stumbled upon this one.
BADASS