Reading Deeply: Big Book #1

A Review of The Father's Tale by Michael O'Brien

Welcome to the first installation of my series (which I planned in this post) where in 2025 I am trying to read deeply, not widely by prioritizing bigger books that are also supposed to be great works of literature. I write here as a sort of narration that will hopefully spark conversations with others who have read or hope to read these books, or who wish to talk about the themes I present.

The Father’s Tale by Michael O’Brien is a chunky book. In print, it runs at a little over 1000 pages. The story follows Alexander Graham, a middle-aged widower and father of young twenty-something sons that he raised in his hometown of Halcyon, Ontario — a town which he has almost never left. That is, until Graham’s world is upended by the disappearance of his youngest son from his graduate program in England. Once a quiet and unassuming bookseller, Alex becomes the kind of man who will stop at nothing to rescue his son from the claws of certain peril.

I read this book alongside my Well Read Moms group, which means there were a lot of women all over the country who read it at the same time as me. Even while reading it, I did not expect that this book would be so controversial among this crowd. It turns out people hated the length, the “unusual” pacing, and the plot with at least one too many twists. While The Father’s Tale was not my favorite book by O’Brien, I certainly did not hate it.

It all started when Alex told God to “Do with me what you will.” Then things got crazy.

To me, this story is meandering. It frequently felt like Alex was walking in circles and if only he would buy an answering machine¹ for his house then this whole mess would probably be over pretty quickly. But when Alex turns up very little information in England, he follows his son first to Helsinki, then to St. Petersburg, Moscow, the edges of Siberia, and eventually he even ends up in China. You see, Alex is a devout Catholic, and it appears that his son has been brainwashed by some kind of new age cult with a lot of degree titles behind the leaders’ names. More than anything, Alex is worried about his son’s soul. He feels he has a duty to stop at nothing to get his son back, and since he cannot reach his son by phone or email, he must track his son all over the globe as his son bops from esoteric conference to conference with these cultish freaks.

~Now I will start getting into the spoilers~

At each checkpoint, Alex’s efforts to even get close to his son and make his presence known are thwarted — squashed like a bug. And yet, along the way he encounters a number of figures who deeply need a father. He encourages another lost son to return to his father; he helps a prostitute return to her hometown; he recovers the dignity of a beaten-nearly-to-death man; he consoles a dispirited young woman, and he spends several months as a father figure to two fatherless boys. In all of these ways, Alex is able to see how he did not father his own sons to his fullest capacity, how he failed them, and why, therefore, his son may have been susceptible to the occult.

Alex also undergoes extensive purgation on his journey. First he goes into debt for the quest. His beloved bookstore is on the line. Considering all Alex does is read Russian Literature and Hopkins, go to Mass, and post up in his bookstore that is just the first floor of his historic home — the bookstore is literally all he has. As his journey takes longer and longer and he has to go deeper into debt, it becomes clear he will never financially recover and will lose his bookstore as collateral.

A second purgation happens when the bridges are blown up and the trains break down on his way to the edge of Siberia, Alex also loses any sense of control over his own schedule. He simply cannot proceed on his journey until the powers that be decide to repair the bridges in the depths of winter. He spends several days with two mission priests who essentially set him up in a silent retreat that induces crazy visions and fever dreams. Again, he is forced to confront his shortcomings in an induced spiritual desert. He also experiences temptations in this time.

A third purgation happens when Alex is back on the train to Siberia. Wooed by the beauty of a young woman seated across from him, he and the woman begin reciting poetry in Russian for each other. Eventually, he takes the risk of reciting for her a love poem that he composes on the spot. It is a sort of epic love poem with an albatross and kingfishers and deities. The girl admires it but does not understand because he cowardly recites in English. Then he accidentally lights himself on fire and the woman doctor who helps him can actually speak fluent English, understood the whole poem, and Alex is thus humiliated.

He also experiences physical purgations at least twice: first when he is beaten nearly to death in Siberia (in Irkutsk I think?), his documents stolen and identity wiped, and cared for by the aforementioned woman doctor; second, when he is kidnapped by the Russian military (or whatever they are), accused of being a foreign intelligence spy, and tortured within an inch of his life in an attempt to extract from him his “true identity” and what he supposedly knows. Yes, you heard that right: he is accused of being a spy and kidnapped by the Russians for it. He is waterboarded and more. I have to admit, I also thought things were getting quite silly at this point.

After he is tortured nearly blind, he encounters another prisoner who has Alex put his fingers into the wound at the strangers side. This brings Alex immediate peace. In my opinion the prisoner is not “real” — it’s a bodily experience of Christ. Then, Alex is cared for in transit by Russian soldiers who make him comfortable and get him something to drink. Clearly this is supposed to remind readers of Christ’s crucifixion, when the Roman soldiers lifted the saturated sponge to Christ’s mouth. But Alex witnesses the brutal death of those young soldiers when they are attacked by the Chinese for a supposed border violation. There are still probably 200 pages to go after this — but I will stop with the recounting here.

So basically, O’Brien has set up Alex to go through this spiritual journey that parallels Christ’s life in ways that are unique to Alex and his wounds. He encounters some lost souls and puts them back on the right path. He is lead into the desert to pray and encounters temptation and the devil. He is purified to become more christlike. He undergoes humiliation, and he has a period of peace and nurturing before he is falsely accused, tortured, and basically dies to the world for like, a year and a half, before he is reborn to the west, never quite the same again.

I liked this book. I gave myself plenty of time to read it and worked on it a little bit every night. Because I worked through it slowly, I was able to ask at every weird turn “What is O’Brien trying to say here?” Thus, I found it a great meditative practice on Christ’s life, eastern spirituality, and accepting suffering so that it can make you more Christlike. What I liked was that Alex was not a perfect example of this. He could be naive, close-minded, and sometimes he had to learn a lesson multiple times before it actually sunk in. For a while, it actually felt like Alex got worse — more ignorant, annoying, and intolerable. But that is the spiritual life. Holiness is not usually a linear progression. Sometimes God sends us the perfect cross from which to learn our lesson and be purified… and we miff it! We are sour and ugly and do not suffer well. We walk away and say “ugh God why did you let this meaningless, stupid thing happen!? How could you!?” And he is forced to send the lesson again.

This book is dialogue heavy, and apparently a lot of people hated that. But it reminded me of The Brother’s Karamazov, and so in that way it felt like a western contribution to a Russian tradition. The story is carried by reflective and long monologues, and we hear a lot of “meaningless” stories along the way that all contribute to the bigger themes.² I loved these stories because they were helpful insights not just into the suffering of Russians in the 20th century, but also the reality of the “aftermath” of communism there today.

That being said, I think part of why I was able to appreciate this book so much is because around the time I started it I also happened to start a short course on Karl Marx and Communism. This book made real to me a lot of the ideas I was learning about in that class, and how Russians were stripped of their culture and faith by communist dictators in the 20th century. In that way I think this book is pertinent today and could be a useful way for Catholics to begin to encounter the negative consequences of communism and authoritarianism.

On to what I did not like!

I agree, this book is too long. I think it would have been fine without the Russian spy plot. I think O’Brien could have expanded the beating scene in Irkutsk (or wherever it was) and let coming home to Irina’s family be his “resurrection” — where he learns again how to be a father, and over time finds his way home or whatever. Just the intelligence spy thing… felt so silly. I understand why O’Brien did it. But when I told my husband he started laughing. When I got to that part I literally covered my mouth and chuckled. It was too much. And without all of the words wasted on his time recovering in China, we would have saved at least 100 pages. I understand he was trying to bring light to the plight of Christians under communism in China but… just write another book, my dude. 700 or 800 pages would have sufficed. If he writes the China book, I’ll read it!

I saw some critiques that the pacing was objectively bad. I didn’t feel that way. Maybe if I were rushing through it or listening to it on audiobook (I heard the voice acting for the audiobook is terrible, so don’t even bother with it) I might feel that way. At times I was gripped, and other times less so. I think that is normal. But because this book is so long, I think it made people angry and they felt like they wasted their time.

I also saw people say the prose is objectively bad and “unparseable.” I think an important piece of context here is that O’Brien is truly a self-made writer. He didn't even graduate high school, let alone go to college. He started writing in his 40s. He’s just a well read faithful Catholic who like to write fun adventures. I like to tell people that if you want The DaVinci Code vibes without the heresy, just read O’Brien’s Father Elijah. So fun! That being said, his writing doesn’t always follow all the conventional rules of syntax and grammar. I don’t think it’s bad at all, just unconventional. I understand because my formation as a writer is similar. I know how to write because I’ve been reading excellent books my whole life. I know what good writing sounds like. I certainly break a lot of grammatical rules, and yet people understand and enjoy reading what I have to say. I think it would be especially bothersome if you are rushing through the reading, but if you are reading at a reasonable pace (and not reading via audiobook) you should have no trouble understanding what he has to say. The prose certainly is not beautiful like Wendell Berry or something, but it’s not horrible.

I rated this book 3.5, maybe a 3.75/5. I don’t think I will read it again, but it was still time well spent and overall I enjoyed it. If you are at the start of your Russian nerd phase like I am, you will probably enjoy this book!

What did you think of The Father’s Tale? How do you think it compares the rest of O’Brien’s books? Leave a comment below!

Also, if you want to support my writing, my book buying habits, or just get me a little drink to sip on while I write, please consider contributing to my Buy Me A Coffee page, where you can give as little as $5!

1. For the youth among us: back when landlines were the prevailing mode of communication, not every phone had an answering machine. So if you called someone and they didn't answer, you couldn’t leave a message, you would just have to try again at another time. There was also no way to know if you had missed a call while you were out.

2. I have not read The Idiot, but my husband did, and it sounds like maybe The Father’s Tale was following this even more closely.