Chabon’s story is another about father-child relationships and the pains of family life. This is one of a series of stories in a sequence called The Lost World, which charts the unfolding of the divorce of the parents of Nathan Shapiro and the boy’s realisation that this is what is now definitely happening. As the dents in the carpet where some of the furniture once stood quietly but telling testify, his father really is leaving the house.
One of the few short stories I can remember ever making me cry, especially in its ending, as we see – through Nathan’s eyes but from his father’s written testimony – how the closeness they both sought has evaded both of them. Yet the story is as bottled, unspoken and afraid to bare its emotions as its characters (indeed, the father is referred to as ‘Dr. Shapiro’ throughout). It’s what they can’t say – or can only hint at – that is so strong here. Yet we are also left wondering if the outcome would have been the same even if they had: even conquering male reticence might have left Nathan and his father in separate houses, unsure of their futures, although they may have preferred imperfection to absence.
First published in GQ, 1989, and collected in A Model World and Other Stories, William Morrow, 1991
A Personal Anthology 