🚀The Dark Age: Fathers and daughters and time

Hello, friends!

We're approaching the end of (yet another long) year, and while I'll share how my 2022 reading habits played out in my main newsletter, I've accidentally found myself reading two books—in a row!—that echo the themes I'm writing about in The Dark Age.

The last book I finished was This Time Tomorrow, by Emma Straub. It's a time travel novel; that's not spoiling anything, as it's mentioned right there on the dust jacket. Specifically it's a time travel novel that focuses on the history and the bond of a father and daughter. In the present day, Leonard Stern is dying. Struggling to cope with his imminent death is his daughter, Alice Stern, who one day wakes up unexpectedly in her teenage bedroom, once again sixteen years old, once again with a father who is lively and vibrant. It's a book made more poignant, I think, if you know that Emma Straub published the novel just a few months before her own father, the novelist Peter Straub, died.

I discovered Peter Straub via his collaborations with Stephen King (The Talisman in particular). Here's an unusual bit of trivia: Both Peter Straub and Stephen King survived being hit by moving vehicles in their lifetimes.