A Conversation with My Father (Masterplots II: Short Story Series, Revised Edition)
At a glance:
- Author: Grace Paley
- First Published: 1971
- Type of Plot: Metafiction
- Time of Work: About 1971
- Setting: New York City
- Principal Characters: The daughter, Her father, A mother, A son, A young woman
- Genres: Short fiction, Metafiction
- Subjects: New York, North America or North Americans, Northeast, U.S., United States or Americans, Authors or writers, New York City, Death or dying, Creative process, Sick persons, Tragedy, Speeches, Generation gap, Old age or elderly people
- Locales: New York, NY
The Story
One evening, the narrator's eighty-six-year-old father lies in bed in his New York home. Unable to walk, he suffers from a heart condition after having lived a rich life as a doctor and an artist. He appears near death, for he has pills at hand and breathes oxygen from a bedside tank. He has not lost his intelligence, interest in art, or concern for his daughter, however. In what might be the speech of one knowing that he is near death, he confronts his daughter about the kind of short stories that she writes. He wishes that she would write “simple” stories like...
[The entire page is 1435 words long]
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