Father of the Man: A Novel [Hardcover]

Robert Mooney (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 22, 2002

A stunning literary debut: a powerful love story informed by ghostly
demarcations between World War II and the Vietnam War.

It's just after dawn, June 6, 1982: "Dutch" Potter, an upstate New York bus
driver and father of a soldier who's been missing in action in Vietnam for twelve
years, snaps and dons his World War II army uniform, collects passengers aboard his BC Transit bus, then veers off route, careening into the woods of northern Pennsylvania, where he holds seven hostages to his one demand: return my son.

This wild ride, taking us from New York to Normandy to Southeast Asia by way of Dutch's memories, hopes, and despair, is rendered in mesmerizingly lyrical prose-ranging in tone from bardic to barfly-and forms a brilliantly layered and nuanced narrative. As FBI helicopters whir and command centers are jerry-built, Dutch readies himself for an armed confrontation with federalauthorities, while his family and close-knit community are thrown into sudden and dramatic action. Father of the Man reveals itself to be a love story: not only between father and son, but between husband and wife, mother and child, the living and the dead.

Dutch Potter takes us, along with his hapless passengers, beyond the safe, the ordinary, to a heart of darkness.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Mooney adds an unusual twist to the usual hostage standoff plot in his debut novel, a solid effort in which a dispirited, deranged bus driver from Binghamton, N.Y., hijacks his vehicle and demands to see his son, a Vietnam vet who has been MIA for a dozen years, in return for the release of the seven passengers on board. The novel starts off with a series of WWII flashbacks that establish the patriotism of Dutch Potter, who struggles to find rewarding work after the war and ends up as a bus driver whose unhappy marriage offers little solace. Potter turns his attention to trying to find his MIA son, Jom, but as the years pass Potter becomes increasingly disaffected and his behavior grows erratic. The passenger hijacking represents a quantum leap in his criminal resume, bringing in not only the local police but also the FBI and finally a Marine officer who specializes in tracking down MIA veterans from the Vietnam era. The plot takes an unlikely positive turn when the officer turns out to have information about Jom's postwar fate, cooling down the standoff in a series of events stretching the credibility of the story line. Mooney's writing gets carried away in several of the background scenes establishing Potter's various quirks and foibles, but as a character study the novel is otherwise consistent and quietly effective. The author doesn't quite pull off his high-concept suspense plot, but his acute (and timely) take on the psychology of the disgruntled military vet and the well-observed family dynamics establish him as a promising newcomer.
Copyright 2002 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From the Inside Flap

A stunning literary debut: a powerful love story informed by ghostly
demarcations between World War II and the Vietnam War.

It's just after dawn, June 6, 1982: "Dutch" Potter, an upstate New York bus
driver and father of a soldier who's been missing in action in Vietnam for twelve
years, snaps and dons his World War II army uniform, collects passengers aboard his BC Transit bus, then veers off route, careening into the woods of northern Pennsylvania, where he holds seven hostages to his one demand: return my son.

This wild ride, taking us from New York to Normandy to Southeast Asia by way of Dutch's memories, hopes, and despair, is rendered in mesmerizingly lyrical prose-ranging in tone from bardic to barfly-and forms a brilliantly layered and nuanced narrative. As FBI helicopters whir and command centers are jerry-built, Dutch readies himself for an armed confrontation with federalauthorities, while his family and close-knit community are thrown into sudden and dramatic action. Father of the Man reveals itself to be a love story: not only between father and son, but between husband and wife, mother and child, the living and the dead.

Dutch Potter takes us, along with his hapless passengers, beyond the safe, the ordinary, to a heart of darkness.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 240 pages
• Publisher: Pantheon; 1st edition (October 22, 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0375422048
• ISBN-13: 978-0375422041
• Product Dimensions: 8.7 x 5.9 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 15.5 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 3.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (11 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,539,499 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The Mark of a John Gardner Protege, April 23, 2005

By 

Heather Elizabeth Erwin "Choriambic" (Annapolis, MD) - See all my reviews

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This review is from: Father of the Man: A Novel (Hardcover)

Robert Mooney studied with John Gardner at SUNY/Binghamton. I had the very good fortune to know a circle of writers/artists who studied with him when he taught at SIU/Carbondale. This book, like their works, has qualities I believe are the mark of the student/protege Gardner especially fostered--great crafting of sentences, a mix of very beautiful and the raw, very real people, an allegiance to his ideal of moral fiction but never in any way righteous, just true. As the extremes in response among the reviews show, it's not a work for the Saturday afternoon speed reader, but then I wouldn't expect that from someone who studied with Gardner, who in addition to the better known of his writings, was so astute in medieval and renaissance works he is renowned for having written Cliff notes for Chaucer!

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars wild ride, December 10, 2003

By A Customer

This review is from: Father of the Man: A Novel (Hardcover)

These characters will follow you. I've never read something quite so suspenseful (I had to hold myself back from flipping ahead) but also so literary. Mooney takes the reader on a weaving journey through the past and into the depths of relationships. A wonderful novel.

After reading Father of the Man, I was on a bus when a passenger became belligerent and starting ranting and yelling. My first thought was, "Here we go! Into the Pennsylvania wilderness, just like Dutch." But sometimes, life doesn't turn out as carefully constructed (or as beautiful) as it does in novels.

2 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Father of the Man, November 27, 2002

By 

Max Callodion (Scranton, PA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Father of the Man: A Novel (Hardcover)

Father of the Man has some of the most engaging characters I've ever read. Mooney has a gift for illustrating the complexities of real, every day life and making them seem subtley mythic. This is a story about fathers & sons and about families -- the ones we are born to and the ones we make. A wonderful first novel worthy of multiple readings.