Right now a lot of my cares and worries and emotion are revolving around my little boy, and I'd love to read some books with a deep mother/father/child relationship in it that isn't cliche. Any suggestions?
Right now a lot of my cares and worries and emotion are revolving around my little boy, and I'd love to read some books with a deep mother/father/child relationship in it that isn't cliche. Any suggestions?
King Lear, The Tempest, Hamlet - hell, most of Shakespeare acts in some way as a family drama.
The Oresteia (Aeschylus)
Iphigenia at Aulis (Euripedes)
Something more modern, you can look at the familial relationships in Faulkner's As I Lay Dying.
Beloved. I finished it this morning.
I was going to suggest Beloved also
East of Eden by Steinbeck is definitely a great one
Hmm, maybe Silas Marner by George Eliot.
The Road by Cormac McCarthy springs to mind. Father/son relationship is at the heart of the novel, however it is a fairly confronting read and, as is well documented on these forums, McCarthy isn't for everyone.
A rather different tale of father and son can be found in Philip Roth's Patrimony which recounts the death of Roth's father from brain cancer. It sounds terribly depressing but in fact, it's a very touching and funny book, a memoir which reveals the sometimes surprising strength of the bond between parent and child.
Thank you, I will definitely check those out.
I always loved the relationship between Atticus and Scout Finch in "To Kill a Mockingbird."
Sons and Love by D.H. Lawrence
The Book Thief by Markus Zusak(it is an adoptive family, if that makes a difference)
Private Altars by Katherine Moss
The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthrone
I am not finished with it yet but The Tenant of Wildfell Hall by Anne Bronte features the relationship between a single mother and her son.
Fathers and Sons by Turgenev
Brothers Karamazov by Dostoyevsky
Washington Square by James
Maggie - A Girl of the Streets by Stephen Crane
The Major of Casterbridge ~ Thomas Hardy
Under the Greenwood Tree ~ Thomas Hardy
Little Women ~ Louisa May Alcott
Dickens is *very* good on this relationship. Try Nicholas Nickleby, Oliver Twist, and Great Expectations for starters.