Father's Day [Paperback]

Philip Galanes (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: June 14, 2005

At the age of thirty-five, Matthew Vaber’s life is so messy it can only be at a turning point. In one direction is the neon glare of his father’s recent suicide, and in the other is the tough love of his fluorescent mother. He’d love to find love, but he can’t make it twenty minutes into a first date without spotting that fatal flaw. In spite of Matthew’s better intentions, he always finds himself back at the same old place: 555-PUMP, “New York’s only phone line for men who are serious about their bodies!” Eventually, even Matthew realizes the long odds of making a love connection on a sex line, but then the pound sign connects him to Henry. Much to his dismay, Matthew can’t find a single problem with him. In fact, Henry may be just the one to lead Matthew past his recent tragedies and childhood traumas. If Matthew lets himself follow, that is. Philip Galanes’s dynamic wit and idiosyncratic charm make Father’s Day a compassionate, heart-melting story and a delightful debut.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Matthew Vaber's father shot himself in the head. It's with this jarring bit of information that Galanes begins his first novel, which examines grief, relationships and self-reproach in a marvelously witty and winsome voice. While living in New York, Matthew racks up hefty phone bills dialing 555-PUMP, "New York's only phone line for men who are serious about their bodies." All it takes is a simple press of a key to be automatically connected to someone new, and Matthew leaves behind a trail of "victims of the pressed pound key," determined to find someone who is interested in him for something other than sex. Meanwhile, he keeps his shrink apprised of his fixation, knowing he's expected to somehow connect his behavior to his father's death. After Matthew is attacked during a Pump Line encounter gone wrong, he travels to Darien, Conn., to visit his uncle. Excited at the prospect of meeting a crop of posh, suburban Pump Line users, he dials up from his uncle's phone and eventually happens upon Henry, who is also from New York and visiting Darien. Henry is his "it" guy in every way, but is he too perfect? Matthew begins to feel like a caged animal even before their second date and naturally turns to the Pump Line again, along with the Downtown Club, a monument to anonymous casual sex. As he makes discoveries about himself and his family, Matthew comes to the unsettling conclusion that he might be the story's most "unreliable witness," which just might change his perception of his relationship with Henry and his response to his father's death. Galanes paints his characters with a light veneer of despair and an oftentimes tongue-in-cheek sentimentality in this appealingly hang-dog debut.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Review

“Line by tart line, Galanes gives us a curious and even brave thing: a novel at once comic and heartbreaking.” –Los Angeles Times


"[Regarding] fathers and Father's Day: This year it's easy. Buy Dad a copy of Philip Galanes' hilarious and brilliant first novel, Fathers Day." –The New York Observer

“Galanes’s rapid-fire prose effortlessly gets us into the head of his love-fixated New Yorker, thanks primarily to his quick and quirky dialogue, which sounds as if it really had been overheard on a phone line.” –Time Out New York

“An important and promising new voice in gay fiction.” –San Francisco Bay Times

"Philip Galanes makes his debut with a novel that is both heartbreaking and deftly comic, the story of a young man struggling with his most primitive desires--wanting and needing. It is a novel about the complex relationships between parents and children, a story of loss and of our unrelenting need for acknowledgment, to be seen as who we are. And in the end it is simply a love story for our time." –A. M. Homes

“An utterly readable tale. . . . Galanes succeeds at painting complicated, tender as well as racy moments of desperation.” –Hamptons Magazine

“This is not your typical debut novel. . . . Philip Galanes is a powerful writer, and he deserves praise for bucking typical expectations of a first novel.” –Dallas Voice

"In Matthew Vaber, Philip Galanes has created a delightful paradox, a character both superficial and profound, casual-sounding yet compulsive, very funny and borderline desperate--in short, a classic human being. As Matthew himself might say, Father's Day is High Noon in loafers." –Mark O'Donnell

“Father’s Day pulls you in every bit as much as the classic ‘The Snows of Kilimanjaro.’ . . . Galanes’s writing is truly a pleasure to read, staccato sentences, finely noted details, and quirky metaphors that are meant to be savored.” –EDGE Boston

"Philip Galanes has fashioned a novel both bleak and funny about a young man's struggle to sort out his troubled love: the too-strong love for his mother, the too-weak love for his suicidal father, and the all-consuming love of anonymous sexual encounters. Pointed and acute, this story tells of the narrator's many betrayals of others and their many betrayals of him. It exists in an uncomfortable moral space where the humor of terrible things sometimes outweighs, but never obscures, their poignancy." –Andrew Solomon

“Father’s Day is about dealing with loss and grief . . . it will absolutely make its readers want to pick up the phone and call their dads.” –The Weekly News

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 224 pages
• Publisher: Vintage (June 14, 2005)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1400075297
• ISBN-13: 978-1400075294
• Product Dimensions: 7.8 x 5.1 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 8.5 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (19 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,174,172 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A great and delightful read, June 28, 2004

By 

Richard Kurtz (NYC<P>NYC, NY United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Father's Day (Hardcover)

I was going to title my review "a great summer read" but actually this book, which I thoroughly enjoyed (and didn't want it to end ..which I guess is a real compliment to the author) is a novel for all seasons --it's funny, poignant, --all those words that one uses to describe a "good read." I really couldn't put it down ... I took a peek at some of the other reviews and they have said what I want to say far better than I can ..but what I enjoyed most about this book is the author''s "voice" --- by this I mean that this book seems so personal that I felt that I amost knew the author, and his life experiences, by the time I finished it . I highly recommend this book to all....

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars True, so very True......, June 21, 2004

By 

"davsteward" (Boulder, CO) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Father's Day (Hardcover)

"Father's Day" has such genuine soul and is so true in its dialogue and characters. Warm, funny and sometimes tragic - a bit like life.

So often I read a book and I think "that's nice" or "how clever". But rarely do I read a novel that resonates with me as much as this one. The relationship between Matthew and his mother is deep and complicated and mixes love, fear and mistrust in ways that ring very true for me. And Galanes' perspective on gay dating perfectly captures its potent combination of fear and desire.

PLUS, if you like Philip Roth and A.M. Homes, you won't want to miss "Father's Day".

Highly Recommended!

5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars This story never fully engaged me., August 23, 2004

By 

Maurice Williams "mauricewms" (Chicago, IL USA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Father's Day (Hardcover)

"Father's Day" revolves around a mother and son as they deal with the death of their husband and father. The central conflict seems to be internal to Matthew as he tries to make sense of his relationship with his father in the wake of his dad's suicide. Matthew becomes addicted to a telephone dating service that is more focused on anonymous sex than long term dating. As he works through internal conflicts with his therapist, Matthew learns that the phone service and sex clubs are only devices that he uses to shelter himself from his real issue - the lack of an emotional connection with his father (surprise, surprise). Dad seems to have suffered from depression but that's never really flushed out in the story.

Although the writing is solid and the novel short, I had a very difficult time staying interested in the characters. I forced myself to finish the book thinking that some revelatory scene in later pages would pull everything together. It never happened for me. Can't recommend this one.