★★★✰✰ 3 stars

“I won't introduce you to my father, not personally, not yet. Changes are you already know him.”


This Inheritance collection is turning out to be a rather good one. Anthony Marra's contribution adds a bit of humour to this series.
The narrator's father was responsible for a leak of classified documents, landing his own family in the spotlight. Some thought him a hero, others a traitor.
Years later, after publishing a memoir on his childhood, our narrator tries to reconcile himself with his now ill father.
The tone of this short story is somewhat satirical and it definitely provides its readers with quite a few amusing lines: “His Bluetooth is so firmly rooted in his ear that may, technically, qualify as a cyborg. .”
There is a realistic awkwardness between the various characters' interactions which made all the more realistic.
“Honesty comes in an infinite variety, none crueler than a teenager's tedium.”


The narrator quotes Natalia Ginzburg, so yes, this story definitely a plus fo that. However, the nitpicker in me couldn't help but notice that our narrator (someone who can quote Ginzburg) fell for the classic Frankenstein slip (where instead of saying that someone looks like Frankenstein's monster, he refers to them as looking like Frankenstein): “Father Carlson's student have that Frankenstein look of being assembled from different limbs that don't quite fit together.”

Anyway, this was an entertaining short story. It may focus on self-involved individuals (who seem rather disconnected from everyday life) but it also manages to explore compassion and acceptance in very natural (non schmaltzy) way.

A simply brilliant short story from Anthony Marra, of family, and a complicated father-son relationship whilst reflecting on the nature of morality, religion, and corruption, with an examination of the state of ethics and integrity in American life, business, schools and culture. At 34 years old, an unemployed Michael returns to his family home, his father ill with cancer, a father he has never really known or understood. A father convicted of 17 felony charges, viewed both as hero and traitor, a possible recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize, a government whistleblower on unwarranted surveillance by the NSA, who spent 6 years in a federal prison before receiving a presidential pardon from Obama. His father maintained his silence through the years, until a traumatised, angry 22 year old Michael wrote a memoir that betrayed his father, the kindest review of which accused him of patricide, the only person not to condemn him is his dad.

When the keynote speaker of his old Catholic school's Ethics Symposium, a necrophile is charged with wire fraud, tax evasion, and insider trading, Michael agrees to take his place. It soon becomes apparent to him that he is not being lauded as a role model, but instead paraded as a cautionary tale. An acknowledgement of who his father is portrayed by Michael's abandonment of a wheelchair at the lions enclosure, an illusion, an inheritance, an act of love and understanding of a father breaking free and courageous enough to walk among lions. Superb storytelling. Highly recommended. Many thanks to Amazon Original Stories for an ARC.

Anthony Marra's “The Lion's Den” is one of five stories in Amazon's forthcoming collection, Inheritance. The title alludes to the Biblical story of Daniel in the Lion's Den and connects Daniel to the narrator's father, a famous whistleblower who spent years in prison for exposing a warrantless American surveillance program (with a nod to Daniel Ellsberg). A gifted writer, Marra avoids any clunkiness and doesn't pontificate—while still saying something profound about individual acts of courage, as well as American culture and the nature of love.

Michael has just moved home and must confront the reality of his father's imminent death from cancer. He's in his mid-thirties but his life is far from settled: he's jobless, unmarried, childless and essentially directionless. His only “success” has been a tawdry tell-all book he wrote about his father, a lucrative act of betrayal that, ironically, offended everyone but the book's subject. But Michael's father is more than a wronged saint, just as Michael is not simply the child who cashed in on his family's fame. Michael and his mother have struggled too: the family savings have dwindled to nothing and they've received gruesome death threats for years. To some his father is a hero and a prophet, to others he's a selfish, immoral man who betrayed his country. Having lived most of his life in his father's shadow, Michael doesn't seem quite sure who his father is or what motivated him to hide an incriminating computer disk in his glove box for weeks before calling a reporter. So when he's invited to give a key note speech about his father at his alma mater's ethics symposium—in place of a tax-evading necrophile--he's not sure what to say. He's not even sure it matters ("So how much money do you make?" is the first question).

I wasn't sure what to expect from Inheritance, but both stories I've read so far (this one and Hoffman's "Everything My Mother Taught Me)" have been markedly good. Marra's writing can be sharply, wittily incisive at times, yet at others there's a softer tone, poignant and genuine. He manages to convey something important about familial ties and honor, while also making a point about what America passes on to younger generations. Like the genes we inherit, some cultural traits stay with us while others disappear—or maybe they're still there, somewhere, ghosts in the machines that increasingly dominate our lives. But ultimately this is a story about love, about what we say and don't say in the little time that we have with each other.

Much thanks to Amazon and NetGalley for providing me an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

This is one of the five books in Amazon's Inheritance series.

Can You Feel This? by Julie Orringer
Everything My Mother Taught Me by Alice Hoffman
The Lion's Den by Anthony Marra
Zenith Man by Jennifer Haigh

I enjoyed this book and the series. A quick read and I read all of the books in one sitting

"Honesty comes in an infinite variety, none crueler than a teenager's tedium."

This story of a father-son relationship. A boy who's father took an action that put his whole family's life in jeopardy and forever changed the rest of his teenage son's life. A father who is both famous and infamous. Who's both revered and reviled. A family who didn't make the choice but was thrust into the consequences.

"I'd forgotten conversations with Jimmy Massaro are spectator sports. He has an uncanny ability to speak to himself even while looking you in the eye."

This is a story about this boy coming back to be with his dad as he dies. The story of what it means to forgive, to turn one's life into a story, to have your whole identity wrapped up in something that was never even your choice. The consequences of ego. Does time heal wounds? So many questions in such a short story.

"The good news is that adolescence is a disorder whose physical effects are invariably treated by time. Emotionally and psychologically, it is, for some, incurable."

This is one of the five books in Amazon's Inheritance series. "A collection of five stories about secrets, unspoken desires, and dangerous revelations between loved ones."

Can You Feel This? by Julie Orringer
Everything My Mother Taught Me by Alice Hoffman
The Lion's Den by Anthony Marra
Zenith Man by Jennifer Haigh
The Weddings by Alexander Chee

Thank you to netgalley and amazon for an early copy in exchange for an honest review.

A very little taste of one of my favorite author, while waiting for his next "real" book....

Un piccolissimo assaggio di uno dei miei autori preferiti, in attesa che arrivi un libro "vero".

THANKS NETGALLEY FOR THE PREVIEW!

Wow!
Powerful!

An adult son - Michael, 34, moves back home ‘after’ having sold his dad’s story - (a government whistle blower) - to the public.

Where does ego, betrayal, assumptions, righteousness, sacrifice, and blame fit in with discovery of another point of view?
Does healing create the experience of love...
Or does love create the experience of healing?

Facetious knowingness is re-examined through personal observations.

Great short story!