*Spoilers below*
Ultimately, this book did what it set out to do, which was to determine the extent of a parent's culpability for a child's reprehensible action. In this case, the action was the assassination of a political figure. A child acts alone, but who that child becomes is heavily influenced by the parent and that affects the child's decision-making.
Hawley did an incredible job getting into the head of Dr. Allen; I felt as if I was there with him, desperately clinging to any semblance of a mistake, a conspiracy, a set-up. A few times I thought certainly Danny was innocent. After all, he was a good kid and the coincidences couldn't just be coincidences, could they? However, as the novel progressed, Danny's guilt became certain and I found myself frustrated with the main character, wishing he'd just accept things and move on. Then, I put myself in his place and realized that if it was one of my children in Danny's place, I simply wouldn't give up.
The part describing what would happen during Danny's execution tore me apart; Hawley put words to my feelings. How could a parent stay still while life was being drained from a child? How could a pause last forever? How could you watch someone die whom you'd watched being born? The author made me, oddly, feel more for the killer's family than for the victim's.
Perhaps part of that is the lack of personal literary contact with the victim's family. Perhaps the other part is that I didn't find Seagram as dynamic or interesting as the author told us. None of the speeches Seagram gave electrified me or made me tingle like seemingly everyone else in the book. I thought his speeches were a collection of trite and overused "buzz phrases" that anyone with a brain could see through. Seagram was inflated rhetoric, a perfect politician.
Hawley's included research of assassins' and killers' stories impressed me. I learned details about Squeaky Fromme, John Hinckley, Timothy McVeigh, and Sirhan Sirhan I didn't previously know. These informative details cleverly reappeared in the final chapter in Danny's head. The chapter read like a movie, every detail already eerie because the reader knows what's going to happen.
In all, entertaining, informative, interesting, and unlike other books I've read.
Ultimately, this book did what it set out to do, which was to determine the extent of a parent's culpability for a child's reprehensible action. In this case, the action was the assassination of a political figure. A child acts alone, but who that child becomes is heavily influenced by the parent and that affects the child's decision-making.
Hawley did an incredible job getting into the head of Dr. Allen; I felt as if I was there with him, desperately clinging to any semblance of a mistake, a conspiracy, a set-up. A few times I thought certainly Danny was innocent. After all, he was a good kid and the coincidences couldn't just be coincidences, could they? However, as the novel progressed, Danny's guilt became certain and I found myself frustrated with the main character, wishing he'd just accept things and move on. Then, I put myself in his place and realized that if it was one of my children in Danny's place, I simply wouldn't give up.
The part describing what would happen during Danny's execution tore me apart; Hawley put words to my feelings. How could a parent stay still while life was being drained from a child? How could a pause last forever? How could you watch someone die whom you'd watched being born? The author made me, oddly, feel more for the killer's family than for the victim's.
Perhaps part of that is the lack of personal literary contact with the victim's family. Perhaps the other part is that I didn't find Seagram as dynamic or interesting as the author told us. None of the speeches Seagram gave electrified me or made me tingle like seemingly everyone else in the book. I thought his speeches were a collection of trite and overused "buzz phrases" that anyone with a brain could see through. Seagram was inflated rhetoric, a perfect politician.
Hawley's included research of assassins' and killers' stories impressed me. I learned details about Squeaky Fromme, John Hinckley, Timothy McVeigh, and Sirhan Sirhan I didn't previously know. These informative details cleverly reappeared in the final chapter in Danny's head. The chapter read like a movie, every detail already eerie because the reader knows what's going to happen.
In all, entertaining, informative, interesting, and unlike other books I've read.
Hawley took an unpopular subject and made it interesting. What parent hasn't questioned his parenting or his child's choices. The father in this story was real and I could feel his pain. Daniel was believable and not a monster. Interesting background on a few assassins, as the father searched for proof that the killer could not have been his son. There are some odd, overly explicit sexual comments, a bit gratuitous, holding back on the positive review.
THE GOOD FATHER is a gripping novel about Dr. Paul Allen, whose 20-year-old college drop out son is arrested for the murder of a leading presidential candidate. Dr. Allen is a rheumatologist, diagnosing patients with mysterious or conflicting symptoms. He applies his keen diagnostic skills to his son's case in order to prove his son's innocence. Gnawing at Dr. Allen is the fact that he lives on the east coast and his son mainly lived on the west cost with his flaky mother, whom he divorced when the son was 7. Dr. Allen has a unending capacity for unconditional love for his son but also guilt over what, if any, impact the divorce and his distant parenting may have had on his son's actions. Dr. Allen embarks on an all-consuming physical and emotional journey to search for answers that may or may not be found. Recommended.
Noah Hawley has written brilliantly about a subject that few of us consider when a seemingly senseless, horrific crime occurs: the family of the alleged perpetrator. Paul Allen is a renown rheumatologist when his son, Daniel, from his first marriage is accused of killing a popular Democratic candidate for president. Paul is wracked with guilt about this son whom he left in California with his first wife when he moved east and established a new life with a new family. He refuses to accept that his son committed the crime, and attempts to exonerate him using medical procedural approaches that have served him and his patients so well in determining the cause of their symptoms. He thoroughly researches cases of murders and assassinations that have occurred in the past, which adds another compelling layer to this extraordinarily good novel. Paul and his family are reviled by the press, people in the community and his colleagues. The emotional toll on his marriage is compelling and realistic. This is a book I will long remember and highly recommend.
