The Books Briefing: Books From Our Fathers

In Laila Lalami’s novel The Other Americans, a young woman wrestles with complex feelings of grief, fear, and resentment after her father, a Moroccan immigrant, is killed in a hit-and-run. A short story by Saul Bellow examines a son’s relationship with a father who both trained and betrayed him. The writer David Giffels’s father didn’t often speak about emotional topics—but near the end of his life, an unlikely project gave Giffels the chance to get to know him better.