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Dad’s Maybe Book
Tim O’Brien
The bestselling author of The Things They Carried and If I Die in a Combat Zone shares wisdom from a life in letters, lessons learned in wartime, and the challenges, humour and rewards of raising two sons. When Tim O’Brien became an older father, he resolved to give his young sons what he wished his own father had given to him – a few scraps of paper signed ‘Love, Dad’. Maybe a word of advice. Maybe a sentence or two about some long-ago Christmas Eve. Maybe some scattered glimpses of their rapidly ageing father, a man they might never really know. For the next fifteen years, the author talked to his sons on paper, as if they were adults, imagining what they might want to hear from a father who was no longer among the living. O’Brien traverses the great variety of human experience and emotion, moving from soccer games to warfare to risqué lullabies, from alcoholism to magic shows to history lessons to bittersweet bedtime stories, but always returning to a father’s soul-saving love for his sons. The result is Dad’s Maybe Book, a funny, tender, wise, and enduring literary achievement that will squeeze the reader’s heart with joy and recognition.
DAD’S MAYBE BOOK
Tim O’Brien
Copyright (#u6a33f828-57d3-5cc6-b820-efbce426b169)
4th Estate
An imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers
1 London Bridge Street
London SE1 9GF
www.4thEstate.co.uk (http://www.4thEstate.co.uk)
This eBook first published in Great Britain by 4th Estate in 2019
Copyright © Tim O’Brien 2019
Cover photograph © Tim O’Brien
Joseph O’Neill asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Information on previously published material appears here (#u482437ee-443c-550f-bf9e-deea3b44c8a1).
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins
Source ISBN: 9780008372453
Ebook Edition © October 2019 ISBN: 9780008372477
Version: 2019-09-27
Dedication (#u6a33f828-57d3-5cc6-b820-efbce426b169)
For Tad, Timmy, andMeredith O’Brien
Epigraph (#u6a33f828-57d3-5cc6-b820-efbce426b169)
An entry from our babysitter’s journal, January 8, 2008: “You have never lived till you see a two-year-old fall in the toilet.”
And there goes Tad, running through a heavy rain on Rue Malar in Paris, clutching a child’s umbrella, carefully splashing down in each available puddle. After a time, he lifts the umbrella over Meredith’s head and says, “You are my sunshine, even when it’s raining.”
Contents
Cover (#u18d42bcc-65e0-54fc-b2bb-6b451ebc0aad)
Title Page (#u675866eb-82de-5772-ae44-97e745479ac0)
Copyright
Dedication
Epigraph
1. A Letter to My Son
2. A Maybe Book (I) (#uc32433fc-9fec-5917-b11d-3a3de868d032)
3. Row, Row (#u929141e1-d720-5b37-819d-e3d7585e2089)
4. Skin (#ub42ef045-844a-5152-8ff9-44b7e1f5d3d4)
5. Trusting Story (#u5afbf3e5-3ada-5710-9a70-2223ece354e3)
6. First Words (#uc1df8180-e07b-5458-9366-4b8ea67b654d)
7. Home School (#uf43f8368-6a22-5b3e-91de-1c4a2baada82)
8. The Best of Times (#ub759a52f-1790-52c2-878d-30c91619ad9d)
9. Highballs (#u3aadf1e5-08c3-58c4-9067-6ed2504a4ebf)
10. Spelling Lesson (#u0f024a70-64c1-52bf-8207-138ce96982c8)
11. Home School (#u9086c26a-2194-52b9-b6b1-9de1a16b7448)
12. Hygiene (#u6c1df78c-c97b-5944-bc81-a506c5234d90)
13. The Magic Show (I) (#uf723c0f4-a5d8-5d20-88f6-ec5b04613530)
14. Abashment (#u13806b61-29c8-5c7d-bb4f-901641a9ff65)
15. Sushi (#uee03dff0-95a8-5574-9c0d-1ca6f23a9ce7)
16. Pride (I) (#ufff1b3f9-0cee-5bf9-ba66-1f3999e9dfba)
17. Balance (#u75b90b7c-952e-51d3-9cec-5eb0df0294c2)
18. Child’s Play (#u27fa8325-4249-5bd2-9eb2-4a4c43f5d420)
19. Telling Tales (I) (#u846c9a4a-166a-5799-9968-17d42d9b735a)
20. Telling Tales (II) (#u56ba678e-53f6-5ab4-acf8-040d191e3fe6)
21. Pride (II) (#u2f522385-68ff-5f93-ba73-277534438d96)
22. What If? (#ud8320313-4a84-5b64-b823-e0ca8dab414e)
23. Home School (#uc66a387b-a422-538a-922e-39ac7ba72983)
24. Home School (#ub4257a8f-2f53-5566-a847-dca844c6dd2f)
25. The Old Testament (#u7834ffba-a436-50ce-be3e-e6a1f74c96aa)
26. Timmy and Tad and Papa and I (I) (#ua5af73cc-ab3f-597b-8873-fd4efe00c7e2)
27. The Language of Little Boys (#u99b5d624-09e9-5dda-8484-3446082ec3ff)
28. Home School (#u7f43b51b-2548-53cf-95be-34631e3bfba4)
29. Turkey Capital of the World (#u9f6c3921-4ac0-546d-8e94-c31413fa1e09)
30. Pride (III) (#u9387cb13-8aab-5f21-add0-0041087deeab)
31. Pacifism (#u66aed522-a5a6-5521-836f-2cb9de985bac)
32. Timmy and Tad and Papa and I (II) (#ue461213e-1d42-5625-ac50-24fcd2766f23)
33. Home School (#ufe549d0f-ba94-540c-931a-ab74ff885b00)
34. Home School (#u4fd2077f-2498-5973-8da8-7824239c3570)
35. Easier Homework (#u2c9a69e7-b5e8-537f-b94b-600fc92a7dcf)
36. Timmy’s Bedroom Door (#udbe13fb8-d016-5552-8a94-307101e44a4d)
37. Lip Kissing (#ud1f67541-a37a-5b0e-9f13-6039afd9da56)
38. The King of Slippery (#ubd5b3fc9-d7d7-555b-840e-ffdc9db269e3)
39. Timmy and Tad and Papa and I (III) (#u02fa2af4-97ed-5354-baee-17609344c37d)
40. Timmy’s Gamble (#u7eedef90-bc9e-5bf9-b601-cba995804cdc)
41. Dulce et Decorum Est (#u4b64259a-05f3-5df3-b30c-c42ef9297d61)
42. Pride (IV) (#ua433e3a4-8527-59a8-9f48-828bab8dc19c)
43. War Buddies (#u75062016-678d-5a09-add8-5ad0756030db)
44. A Maybe Book (II) (#ub0639054-e3cc-5407-9cc4-66b732dacb66)
45. The Magic Show (II) (#ua257de8e-32f1-5d39-abc0-9a7b458c19d7)
46. Practical Magic (#u49dc11bc-ca30-51a7-8596-a5567928d3cd)
47. An Immodest and Altogether Earnest Proposal (#ubdf86116-6264-537f-a465-80b8b9c2be83)
48. The Golden Viking (#ua9e654be-8837-5179-834d-6023be1a7870)
49. Timmy and Tad and Papa and I (IV) (#u196172c6-8353-592e-bfdd-1f246912209f)
50. Getting Cut (#ub70837ce-4843-5cc4-9ba0-d49f959d0310)
51. Home School (#u8be0116a-eeb4-536f-81e0-526e585a3f5f)
52. Home School (#u84340564-eb64-51a7-b55b-5544c9b96f93)
53. The Debating Society (#u3e97f129-ec03-56a7-9ea9-0adbd291afb0)
54. Sushi, Sushi, Sushi (#ub61722a0-417b-5b20-b62d-da8783b72b35)
55. Timmy and Tad and Papa and I (V) (#u9340d313-badc-53cc-a3e4-cf8f4e26e94f)
56. Into the Volcano (#uc4ceef34-1039-5dd7-b81a-ac90117d5ee2)
57. And into the Stew Pot (#uefa300f6-5e3d-5929-937b-f36c4ebbd5eb)
58. Lesson Plans (#u803eb09f-c0dd-5fef-9977-f7822af2aa42)
59. Tad’s Literary Advice (#ubf2a111b-ab12-5836-a1ae-02d9b31d6d48)
60. One Last Lesson Plan (#u30e9c35e-584f-54ad-88b5-9efab2c94884)
Notes on Sources
Acknowledgments
About the Author
Also by Tim O’Brien
About the Publisher
1 (#u6a33f828-57d3-5cc6-b820-efbce426b169)
A Letter to My Son (#u6a33f828-57d3-5cc6-b820-efbce426b169)
Dear Timmy,
A little more than a year ago, on June 20, 2003, you dropped into the world, my son, my first and only child—a surprise, a gift, an eater of electrical cords, a fertilizer factory, a pain in the ass, and a thrill in the heart.
