If my mother told me ghost stories, it was my father who gave me my love for reading.
My father was a voracious reader. When I think of him, I invariably picture him on his favorite chair in the living room, his face buried behind a newspaper or in a book.
There was always a pile of books by that chair. He read widely, but he especially enjoyed spy thrillers, mysteries, and police procedurals. He got me my first library card, and we went together to the library until I was old enough to travel there on my own.
When my reading improved, I started borrowing his books after he finished them. I was probably too young for some of them, such as Peter Benchley’s Jaws, and William Peter Blatty’s The Exorcist. I remember not understanding half the words in The Exorcist (which was probably a good thing).
I’m starting to look more and more like my father as I grow older. Like him, I’m often in my favorite chair reading the newspaper on my computer. I’m surrounded by books, although many of them are digital and in my Kindle library rather than paperbacks on a shelf.
Pa died before I started writing fiction. I often wonder whether he would have enjoyed my stories. Would he have realized that there’s a little bit of him in everything I write?
When Joe Tham, one of the main characters in my Geomancer’s Apprentice series, is reading a newspaper, that’s my dad. Joe’s pragmatism, his common sense approach, Raymond Soong’s protectiveness toward his daughter Junie—yup, you guessed it, all different facets of my dad. The bits crop up here and there, and I sometimes don’t even recognize them myself until later.
My dad continues to live on in my books, and that gives me joy.
Happy Father’s Day to all the dads!
