Who are the worst fathers in literature?
- Written by Suzy Freeman-Greene, Books + Ideas Editor, The Conversation
Penguin Books, Goodreads, Harper Collins, Text PublishingLiterature has long portrayed messed-up families. As poet Philip Larkin famously wrote, “They fuck you up, your mum and dad. / They may not mean to, but they do.”
In honour of this rich vein of dysfunction, we asked experts to nominate the worst literary fathers and mothers....




