Dad's Maybe Book
Written and Narrated By: Tim O'Brien
Length: 12 hrs and 13 mins
An older Dad, shaped by Literature, haunted by a hated war, leaves lessons, words of love, to his sons
Yeh, yeh, yeh. I read the reviews that growled that there were POLITICS in this book, but dude! What were you expecting? And did you even look at who the author of this book was?
Dad’s Maybe Book was started by author and Vietnam veteran and older Dad, Tim O’Brien, whenst his eldest son was but yea-high to an ant, and when his youngest son was but a spark of energy within the womb of (Also older) Mom, Meredith. Late into his 50s, O’Brien was just a TAD late to get into the parenting game, having been adamant about never having children lest his lifestyle be hampered, lest he turn out to be a terrrrible dad, when he started thinking seriously about his mortality and realized that, WOW! LOVE my two sons, but WOW! I’ll be ancient by the time they’re barely out of college and starting on their lives. What starts as musings of love, turns into an all-out, tho’ sometimes on/off, effort to leave words of wisdom, words of love, words of guidance for his two boys. He writes not to their younger selves but as tho’ they’re already grown and trying to remember a Dad gone too soon.
He wants, so desperately, to be there for his two boys, for Timmy, for Tad. Early in their childhoods, they see him as he begins writing this, and this Maybe Book, Maybe It’ll Get Done, Maybe It’ll Have You Remembering, Maybe It’ll Mean Something, is written and, fortunately for O’Brien, is continued even as O’Brien continued to get older, somewhat healthy, somewhat still vital. The thought early on KILLS him: What if I’m gone early on and they don’t even remember me?
He starts with early memories of the two, first of Timmy and the “colic” which had this little baby screeeeeaming and crying ALL the time, making the two first-time parents, O’Brien and Meredith, think the little soul hates this World he was fated to be born into. It’s not the first time the two parents will seek help for their sons and will receive meds for them, along with prescriptions for Xanax for themselves. These two DESperately love their children; these two DESperately think too much, feel too much.
I get that!
This book is chock-full of anecdotes, yes, but it’s also crammed with memories of O’Brien’s own father, of memories of Vietnam, of reading lists that might shape and guide the two boys as they get along in life, and oh. my. good golly gosh: Hemingway, Hemingway, Hemingway. THOSE parts were the tedious parts because while O’Brien adores the dickens outta that writer, his poor sons so totally do NOT. As they put it: He wrote a lot of war stories without any war in them. And how exciting to a young boy is THAT? NOT very much. But O’Brien is not to be swayed, and many many MANY leeeeeengthy minutes are actually just discourses in the vein of literary criticism and treatises on the magnificence of Hemingway.
>yawn<
Okay, now onto the other parts. DO expect a LOT about war. As O’Brien suggests: Let’s all, as a people, just talk about it for what it is: Killing people and children too. The global war on terror is the global war on killing people and children too, etc. etc. And what listener is going to get all grouchy about that? Have they never read/listened to a Tim O’Brien book/audiobook before? Are they truly surprised that this man was shaped by a war he didn’t want to be a part of, shaped by days upon days of never knowing when chaos was about to erupt, ending his life, leaving him a torn mess of shrapnel and gore? Are they truly surprised that O’Brien has taken umbrage that the Powers That Be touted war even as they shielded their own children, and that they continue to do so in the wars on terror of today? Yessss, DO be prepared for a man who’s angry, and one who will tell his sons to avoid being the kind of idiots who would do that, UNLESS they themselves are willing to fight and die, unless they themselves have no problem shipping their sons off somewhere else, possibly to be shipped back home in body bags.
You’ll find that O’Brien is still living with PTSD, has silent spells that his sons notice but really don’t comment on, only quipping here and there that Dad never really came back from the war.
But there’s also soooo much more within these 12 hours, hours filled with half-baked magic shows the whole family participates in, hours filled with little boys caring that Dad is grieving the loss of his mother, hours filled with a father’s most definite pride and wonder as he watches his little boys, the children of his heart, as they become fully-fleshed individuals in their own right, spouting humor, intelligence, displaying ambitions and determinations of their own, just all that stuff that makes a parent’s heart sing.
And? There are even more touching stories of O’Brien sharing thoughts on his own father, a man he would’ve dearly loved to hear an: I’m so proud of you! from. A man whose life shrank after WWII, leaving a husk, an empty shell who dealt with a diminished life by drinking to oblivion. A man whose actions and choices caused embarrassment, but a man he loved profoundly.
Seriously. This is a rather long 12 hours, and it all meanders quite a bit, but it’s immensely moving. Yeh, there are the diatribes, yeh, there’s a bit of Woe is Me, but YEH, there’s SO much love in this. Maybe all fathers should be this old when they start out as they’re closer to embracing the long goodnight, leaving them reflective and somewhat wiser about being awake to each moment, to each small joy. O’Brien sees it all, and each kiss he’s able to give his sons is an absolute miracle to him, each story he’s able to share with them is a gift beyond belief.
I’m so glad O’Brien narrated this himself, and he does so very well that I did indeed wonder why he didn’t narrate some of the fiction he has out there on audiobook format. He has the warm voice of a father, the growly tones of a lifetime smoker (Tho’ it’s never distracting or, like, UGH-ish), and there are times his voice becomes thick with emotions. The man is fearless in relating his emotion, no qualms with expressing his everlasting regrets, no problems with conveying sorrow.
And when it comes to the end? When he sets out his most heartfelt wish for how his sons might spend his 100th birthday with him long gone, with his sons muddling about in early middle-age? A golf game between the two, stories of dad. Remember those damned magic shows? Remember all that damned Hemingway? And oy, those reading lists!
Remember that man who loved us so very much?
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