"Fathers as well as mothers need metaphorical slaying. Among this book’s highlights is an essay about Yeats’s tangled relationship with his father, a frustrated writer. The elder Yeats repeatedly sent his famous son short stories and other writing and received mostly silence in return. His letters are filled with squirm-inducing implorings, like, 'Did you get my ‘poem’?' and 'Why don’t you tell me about my play?'" Dwight Garner • NYT

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