Father Verses Sons: A Correspondence in Poems

By Herbert Gold, Ari Gold and Ethan Gold

When the global pandemic forced his ninety-six-year-old father into isolation, filmmaker Ari Gold became concerned that loneliness would kill his father's spirits. As a prolific novelist who began writing in his twenties, Herbert Gold's incredible oeuvre included twenty-four novels, five collections of stories and essays, and eight nonfiction books. So, Ari mailed his father a poem, asking for one in return. Later, Ari's twin brother, Ethan, also got into the game. Thus was launched a lifesaving literary correspondence, and a testament to the bonds of family.

The resulting poems are playful, honest, funny, and moving. Secrets are invoked alongside personal – and often painful – history. Ari and Ethan’s mother, Herbert Gold’s second wife, died in a helicopter crash alongside the famous rock promoter and impresario Phil Graham in 1991. Her ghost roams through the poems and the wonderful archival photos included in full color throughout.

In Father Verses Sons, a lushly illustrated “correspondence in poems,” ranges across the life, family, and death of a remarkable father. The father and his sons write tenderly of their hunger for connection, about the woman that all three men have lost (a mother, a wife), and about the passion that all three seek. Ultimately, these poems tell a singular story of men bumbling their way towards love.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Rare Bird Books
• Release date: Mar 26, 2024
• ISBN: 9781644284322

Herbert Gold

Herbert Gold, literary icon and compatriot of the Beat Generation, published more than thirty books, including the bestseller Fathers. He won the Sherwood Anderson Award for Fiction, the Commonwealth Club Gold Medal, & the PEN Oakland Josephine Miles Literary Award.

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