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Review by James Neal Webb
The other night I watched my son pitch his first game this season. I was struck by how much he had grown over the past year, how much his technique had improved. He looked like a real pitcher. I wanted to accost everyone there: "Look, that's my son up there. Isn't he great?" I guess this pride is just one facet of the relationship between a father and son. Bret Lott obviously has thought about that relationship, and he's taken the time to write eloquently about it in his book of essays, "Fathers, Sons, and Brothers: The Men in My Family."
Lott is a thirtysomething writer living in South Carolina with his wife and two sons. A native of Southern California, he comes from a typical American family -- two brothers, a sister, a hardworking father and a long-suffering mother. He had a paper route when he was a kid, lived through a traumatizing move when he was in grade school, and endured silent anguish as his older brother began a slide into juvenile delinquency.
While Lott's experiences are his own, universal truths abound in these essays. Lott talks about his relations with his father and brothers, and how they in turn affect his dealings with his sons. There is his work ethic, inspired by his father, a salesman in California and later in Arizona, who brought the teenage Lott into the business through a summer job. He contrasts the conflicts and conspiracies of his brothers with those of his children; particularly poignant is the story of his brother's decline and the interaction he sees reflected in his own children. It should be noted that his brother ended up OK. This, too, colors his dealings with his children. There is the bigger-than-life crisis of Hurricane Hugo, and the smaller crisis of complicated tonsillectomy.
In one memorable essay, he writes of a drive designed to shrug off the lethargy of a Sunday afternoon. After being chased out of the house by his caring wife, he sets out through the rain with his sleeping kids and a quiet, attentive dog. The wave of an old man by the side of the road sends him on his way, and he experiences a moment of pure, serendipitous beauty. That's a good way to describe this book, come to think of it.
©1997, ProMotion, inc.