Bandit
March 13, 2019 8:50 AM Subscribe
An engrossing memoir of a daughter for her complicated, distant father.
This is such a beautiful article. Molly Brodack makes everything she describes seem so immediate and clear. I loved too many things to quote them all here, but I thought this was an especially interesting observation:
Outcomes get shaken out fast in gambling. In real life, big risks take years to reveal themselves, and the pressure of choosing a career, a partner, a home, a family, a whole identity might overwhelm an impatient man, one who values control, not fate. He will either want all the options out of a confused greed, hoarding overlapping partners, shallow hobbies, alternate selves; or he will refuse them all, risking nothing. And really, the first option is the same as the second. Keeping a few girlfriends or wives around effectively dismisses a true relationship with any one of them. Being a good, hardworking dad and a criminal at the same time is a way of choosing to be neither.
posted by rue72 at 1:39 PM on March 13, 2019 [3 favorites]
Outcomes get shaken out fast in gambling. In real life, big risks take years to reveal themselves, and the pressure of choosing a career, a partner, a home, a family, a whole identity might overwhelm an impatient man, one who values control, not fate. He will either want all the options out of a confused greed, hoarding overlapping partners, shallow hobbies, alternate selves; or he will refuse them all, risking nothing. And really, the first option is the same as the second. Keeping a few girlfriends or wives around effectively dismisses a true relationship with any one of them. Being a good, hardworking dad and a criminal at the same time is a way of choosing to be neither.
posted by rue72 at 1:39 PM on March 13, 2019 [3 favorites]
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posted by Cris E at 10:14 AM on March 13, 2019