Dad's Maybe Book

Tim O'Brien shares wisdom accumulated over a life in letters, lessons from wartime, and reflections on raising two sons. In 2003, as an older father, the National Book Award–winning novelist began writing notes to his young sons—offering advice, memories, and glimpses of himself as a father they might never fully know. For fifteen years, he wrote to them as if they were adults, imagining what they might want to hear from a father no longer living. The collection moves across diverse human experiences: soccer games, warfare, lullabies, alcoholism, magic shows, history lessons, and bedtime stories. Throughout, O'Brien returns to a father's love for his sons. The result combines humor, tenderness, and wisdom, exploring the uncertainties of life and legacy that shape a parent's relationship with his children.