title: A Father's Words
author: Richard Stern
description: Pithy, witty, written in sharply honed prose, Stern's novels (Other Men's Daughters, Natural Shocks are always intelligent and provocative. Here his focus is middle-aged Chicagoan Cy Riemer, publisher of a respected science newsletter, divorced, father of four who are now adults, lover of a woman young enough to be his daughter. In a distinctively cranky but endearing voice, Riemer relates a typical paternal complaint: his children are afflicting him with frustrations and heartaches. His major concern is his bright, charming but feckless son Jack, who seems devoted to a life of downward mobility. Riemer's running disquisition on the anxieties of fatherhood is humorous, philosophic, laced with literary apothegms. There is comic irony in the way he repeatedly sees his children's quests for independence as criticism of their father. Stern has a sharp eye for the nuances of family relationships, and an equal gift for evoking the urban neighborhoods of Chicago and New York. The novel ends in a rush, however, with a truncated quality that is disconcerting. <br />Copyright 1986 Reed Business Information, Inc.
zlib_text: ![](Images/image00106.jpeg)
  
  **T** **HE** **G** **REAT** **G** **ATSBY**
  
   **B** **Y** **F** **.** **S** **COTT** **F** **ITZGERALD**
  
  >  _Then wear the gold hat, if that will move her;_  
  >  _If you can bounce high, bounce for her too,_  
  >  _Till she cry ‘Lover, gold-hatted, high-bouncing lover,_  
  >  _I must have you!’_
  
  —THOMAS PARKE D’INVILLIERS
  
  CHAPTER 1
  
  In my younger and more vulnerable years my father gave me some advice that
  I’ve been turning over in my mind ever since.
  
  ‘Whenever you feel like criticizing any one,’ he told me, ‘just remember that
  all the people in this world haven’t had the advantages that you’ve had.’
  
  He didn’t say any more but we’ve always been unusually communicative in a
  reserved way, and I understood that he meant a great deal more than that. In
  consequence I’m inclined to reserve all judgments, a habit that has opened up
  many curious natures to me and also made me the victim of not a few veteran
  bores. The abnormal mind is quick to detect and attach 