13 Moving Books About Fathers and Fatherhood

This genre-bending new novel from critically acclaimed author John Vercher explores the complexities of racial identity, grief, fatherhood, and family history. Soon after the tragic loss of his son, the book’s narrator, a biracial man, learns that he’s inherited a former slave plantation from the white side of his family. Devil Is Fine alternates skillfully between humor, grief, and the supernatural in a way that makes it both deeply moving and impossible to put down. “The novel’s final pages will leave you breathless” (Jonathan Escoffery, author of the Booker Prize finalist If I Survive You).

George Saunders explores fatherly grief through the eyes of Abraham Lincoln in this touching work of supernatural historical fiction that blends heart and humor with boundless imagination. Reeling from the death of his 11-year-old son, Lincoln enters into “the bardo,” a transitional realm between the living and the dead where ghosts carry on the same kinds of emotional and social struggles we go through in life. Not long after Lincoln arrives in this in-between land, a fight breaks out over the future of his son’s soul, compelling the bereaved father to act. A Man Booker Prize–winning work, Lincoln in the Bardo is not to be missed. 

Victor LaValle’s award-winning dark fantasy book about fatherhood was recently adapted into an Apple TV+ series starring Lakeith Stanfield. The show is excellent, but be sure to read its stellar source material first! Hailed as “riveting” by the Los Angeles Review of Books, The Changeling follows Apollo Kagwa, a new father whose own dad mysteriously disappeared when he was young. Soon after Apollo’s son is born, his wife, Emma, begins acting strangely. At first, he interprets Emma’s behavior as postpartum depression — until she lashes out and then disappears without a trace. Stunned, the new father embarks on a mystical odyssey across an otherworldly New York City to find his vanished family.

This renowned post-apocalyptic novel about fatherhood is a Pulitzer Prize winner and a modern American classic, so pick it up at once if you haven’t already read it! The Road follows a father and son in search of solace at the end of the world. Their journey across a wasted landscape illustrates the deep familial bond that holds them together; each is the other’s entire world in the wake of Earth’s devastation. Cormac McCarthy delivers a staggering meditation on human nature, connection, and the father–son bond, ultimately championing the persistence of hope in the direst of circumstances.

Paul Harding’s Tinkers is not only a Pulitzer Prize–winning book about a father and son who “tinker” in different ways but a moving exploration of identity, grief, and our connection to the natural world. As an elderly fixer of clocks lies dying, he slips into a reverie about his childhood in Maine, allowing him to finally reckon with the loss of his father from 70 years ago.

We wrap up our list of fiction books about fathers with an adventure-filled literary thriller. Samuel Hawley is a single dad who’s spent a lifetime on the run while taking care of his daughter, Loo. Now that they’ve finally arrived at his late wife’s coastal hometown, Samuel hopes to keep a low profile. Loo, meanwhile, is curious about her mother and her father’s mysterious past. But the deeper she digs, the darker her family’s history appears — and that darkness might be catching up with them. Hannah Tinti’s The Twelve Lives of Samuel Hawley blends action-packed thrills with coming-of-age family drama as it explores the complex bond between a father and daughter.

It’s safe to say that Mikel Jollett’s childhood was far from typical. Born into a cult, he was separated from his parents as a baby, and his earliest memories were within the confines of the commune’s school. As a small child, Jollett escaped to freedom with his mom and older brother, only to endure a life of poverty, addiction, and emotional abuse — at the hands of his mother.

Fortunately, Jollett’s father was able to escape the cult as well and came back into his life, fully sober and rehabilitated, at a time when Jollett had no one else. Hollywood Park is an unforgettable memoir of a tumultuous life, fierce loyalty, and the father–son bond that saved the author’s life.

From NPR journalist Aarti Shahani comes a striking memoir about the immigrant experience and her father’s harrowing experience with the American Dream. The Shahani family arrives in Queens, New York, by way of India. After a few rocky years of adjustment, they begin to relax into their new life in the States. But their security is upended after Aarti’s father unwittingly sells goods to a notorious drug cartel and is pulled into a legal battle that puts the entire family in jeopardy. Here We Are is a heartfelt account of a father and daughter, and a probing examination of America’s immigration and court systems.

Autumn is the first in a four-book series written by Karl Ove Knausgaard to his new daughter. Known as the Seasons Quartet, the works seek to provide a kind of guide to the world in all its wonder. While many of the books on our list are sweeping in scale, Knausgaard’s nonfiction narrative offers a gorgeous meditation on tiny marvels and everyday joy. In exploring his new role as a father, Knausgaard draws our attention to the beauty in life that we so often overlook.

A National Book Award winner and a New York Times bestseller, Ta-Nehisi Coates’s acclaimed narrative is a profound book about fatherhood that everyone should read. Between the World and Me is written as a letter from Coates to his adolescent son. In it, the author reckons with the stark realities of being Black in America, offering his unflinching perspective on American history as well as racial inequality and discrimination, and his hopes for a more equitable future for his child. Both intimate and immense, Coates’s writing is for anyone who seeks to understand the stakes of American racism to build a better world for all children.

When comedian Rob Delaney lost his 2-year-old son Henry to brain cancer, he worked through it the only way he knew how — by crafting a tender portrait of fatherhood and loss that The New York Times calls “captivating,” “poignant,” and “miraculously funny.” The power of A Heart That Works is in its clarity: Delaney deftly blends comedy with tragedy as he grapples with the unimaginable loss of his son, reflecting on the meaning of family and encouraging us all to live life with love as our guide.

In his bestselling memoir, Barack Obama confronts the legacy of his father and his own identity as a biracial man in America. Dreams of My Father is a searing assessment of race, belonging, fatherhood, and forgiveness. Across its pages, Obama traces his lineage from Kansas to Hawaii and then finally to Kenya, where he meets the African side of his family, all in an attempt to better understand his background and the life of his father, a man he barely knew. 

We conclude our list of books about fatherhood with a delightful and insightful essay collection by Michael Chabon. Inspired by a viral GQ magazine piece the author wrote about the lessons he’s learned from his son, Pops: Fatherhood in Pieces features thoughtful and often very funny takes on navigating parenting. Suffused with warmth and wit, it feels like a conversation with dear old dad about hopes, dreams, and the everyday absurdities of life.