Fiction Pick of the Week: The Good Father

The Good Father by Noah Hawley 2012

“I am the shadow son” are words that Dr. Paul Allen reads in his son’s journal, a son who has just been accused of killing the Democratic candidate for President. Was Daniel capable of such an act? Does Paul even know him well enough to know? The father sets out, driven by love and guilt, to find the truth.

Daniel is Paul’s first son of a failed marriage. In the year leading up to the assassination, he has dropped out of Vassar College, changed his name, and become a drifter. Following his trial over this same year, his father tries to rediscover his son, and reassure his son that he is now “by his side".

Although much of the timeline goes back, seeking answers in the past, the story is still fast paced. There is not much time from the trial and sentencing to the set date of execution to prove Daniel’s innocence or accept his guilt. The criminal justice system moves quickly when the victim is such an important man.

Adding to the immediacy are Paul’s recollections of actual killers. Seeking a frame of reference for his son, he draws parallels with several famous killers. He wonders if his son could be like Sirhan Sirhan, who shot Robert Kennedy, when he was also a Democratic candidate for President.

Told in alternating chapters by father and son, this psychological novel is emotionally intense. The reader is always asking: what if this was my child?