My Father Before Me, How Fathers and Sons Influence Each Other Through Their Lives, By Michael J. Diamond,
Non-Fiction/Self-Help

First of all let me say if you are in, thinking about, or have been in therapy and it has worked for you, GOOD FOR YOU, I think it is all about what works for you! Now that being said it was obvious that this book was written by a psychoanalyst, which is a profession that I think (and my Dad thinks this too) can be a lot of navel gazing, I think that self-examination is a good thing but it can also be overdone. There were some parts of the book that seemed so basic that I had trouble getting motivated to keep reading, but I think overall it had some pieces of insight that I had not thought about, which I think was the books main goal.

The early parts of the book, was the section that I had the most difficulty with, there were a lot of issues he brings up that made me think “No duh, who wouldn’t know that?” I don’t know if it was the choice of being a stay at home dad forced me think about some of these issues a little bit more, or if I am just amazingly in touch with my inner manliness, but I don’t have a lot of anxiety over the fact that my amazingly gifted wife is very successful and makes more money than me. There is a lot of stuff in the first third of the book that makes me think of a saying my Dad has, “in this life you generally have two choices, you choose to get happy, or be pissed off a long time”.

As I got further into the book it started to have more in it for me and made me thankful that my Dad and I have had as good of a relationship as we have, there are a lot of things in there that I still think are a bunch of hooey (i.e. most of the Freudian stuff) but it did bring up a lot of issues that I had not thought about since I was in high school, arguments I had with my Dad and things like that, and made me thankful that my father did a great job of showing interest and not “living his life through me”. I can see how if you had an absentee father or some other issues with your dad some of the accounts in this book might be very helpful. The examination of the relationship between Father, Son and Grandson and the legacy that is left behind was an interesting thing to think about.

One of the things I did like about this book is the first person accounts (i.e. the Ex-Pro-athlete that had to overcome his own aspirations as a father to deal with his son’s autism, and another father who learned NOT to cheer at his son’s games) but some parts this book reads a lot like some of the papers I remember writing in college, there are several phrases that he repeats over and over, which is done, I am sure, to create emphasis but reminds me of trying desperately to get to 500 words. In conclusion, I don’t think I am going to sign myself up for therapy but overall I thought it was a worthwhile read.