The Father's Tale [Hardcover]

My first impression of The Father's Tale (before I read a word of it) is that it is a BIG novel--over 1,000 pages. After reading it, I'm still convinced that it is a BIG novel--but in a different way: it is truly one of the GREAT novels of our time. In spite of its size, I devoured the story in a little over a weekend. It was so captivating that I sometimes got up in the middle of the night to read more because I could not get the story out of my head.

The Father's Tale is an appropriate title in several ways. On the surface level, it's the story of Alexander Graham, a recluse bookseller in a small town. To him, his life appears meaningless and empty since his wife has passed away and his two sons have embarked on their own journeys--the older one chasing after worldly succes and the younger engaging in questionable esoteric pursuits abroad. Alex's life is turned upside down when his younger son, Andrew, disappears without a trace. Alex mortgages his meager resources to the hilt--literally surrendering everything he has and is--in a trans-world quest to find his lost son.

On another level, the story is an allegory for the parable of the Prodigal Son. And on an even deeper level, it is a rich tale of self-discovery that entails symbolism, mysticism, and the everlasting love of The Father for his sons and daughters as He pursues them like the Hound of Heaven.

As "big" as the novel was, it ended too soon for me. I could have read another 1000 pages of O'Brien and not minded at all.

This is my new favorite fiction. The Father's Tale is absorbing on many levels. As a straight up tale of adventure it succeeds by force of elaborate plot. Though it is riddled with foreshadowing, it remains mostly unpredictable till the final pages. As a period and culture novel, the 500 pages dedicated to the experience of Russia at the turn of the century are a compelling postscript to works of Russian writers before the fall of the USSR. Where it succeeds best, as with all of O'Brien's novels, is as a tale of an individual making his way in a world that is not just material and where his and other characters' actions have consequences on a spiritual level. The imagery in this ninth O'Brien work is perfectly honed. I may be partial to his use of birds and his portrayal of suffering but all of it works to draw the reader into the story. Remarkably, you are left at the end feeling as if you too have experienced Alexander Graham's spiritual journey.

This year of Our Lord 2011 has been a very challenging to our family. Among the many challenges we've faced was one very trying one, one which brought my dignity and my self-identity as a father into question.

To make the story short, the series of events left me thinking that I have failed as a father to one of my sons, that I was unsuccessful in handing down the faith, the way to live a Christian life, to hold on to a holy marriage, to respect the sacraments and the life of grace. Surely it was my fault that he had to look elsewhere for what I failed to give him.

Michael O'Brien's book, A Father's Tale, was brought to me as a healing balm, as just the medicine that the doctor ordered.

The Father's Tale: A Novel is the story of a man about my age, father of two sons like I am, and one of them went astray. The father, Alexander Graham by name, a reclusive widower and bookstore keeper, resigned to die. He left everything behind, his bucolic Canadian town, his shop, his friends, and his eldest, starting a desperate race against time and distance to bring his son, his stray lamb, back into the fold.

Spanning Great Britain, Finland, the entire length of Russia and beyond, Mr. O'Brien gives us a tour de force that includes music, poetry, revolution; as well as deepest darkness and incredible light. We see Alex Graham's heart expand, then break, and then expand into greater love.

Two takeaways from this book, the first one a lesson taught also in several other books by Mr. O'Brien which I have read, and that is that the battle against evil is not going to be won by any human means at our disposal. No one knows can begin to image how the battle will be won, but it will be won. In fact, it has been won already.

The second lesson reminds me of words spoken by the Francis character in Brother Sun, Sister Moon: there no more sons, there are no more fathers. But Alex Graham went deeper into his meditation, discovering that fathers will become sons and sons, fathers and above all of them, Our Father who is in heaven.

My father passed recently and I realized that I never told him directly that I loved him, and in my own ruminations I found out that, although I knew I loved God the Father, and He knew too, I never did in fact, ever told God that I love Him. For the first time in a long time, the images of both fatherhoods, that of my father, and that of my God, fused. I finally found the Source of the stream, from which all fatherhood in heaven and on earth take the name and before Whom I bend the knee.

The Father's Tale: A Novel did that for me and also reassured me that everything will be alright, everything will turn out alright. God our Father will see to it, and what I have handed down to my son s will endure.

If this book brought me to these realizations, imagine what it could do for you!

There is more, but I will not tell you anything more. I want you to find out. Read The Father's Tale: A Novel .