Pops: Fatherhood in Pieces Read online

  Cover design by Adalis Martinez

  FIRST EDITION

  Digital Edition MAY 2018 ISBN: 978-0-06-283463-8

  Version 04052018

  Print ISBN: 978-0-06-283462-1

  ISBN 978-0-06-287018-6 (B&N Signed Edition)

  ISBN 978-0-06-287019-3 (BAM Signed Edition)

  About the Publisher

  Australia

  HarperCollins Publishers Australia Pty. Ltd.

  Level 13, 201 Elizabeth Street

  Sydney, NSW 2000, Australia

  www.harpercollins.com.au

  Canada

  HarperCollins Publishers Ltd

  Bay Adelaide Centre, East Tower

  22 Adelaide Street West, 41st Floor

  Toronto, Ontario, Canada

  M5H 4E3

  www.harpercollins.ca

  India

  HarperCollins India

  A 75, Sector 57

  Noida

  Uttar Pradesh 201 301

  www.harpercollins.co.in

  New Zealand

  HarperCollins Publishers New Zealand

  Unit D1, 63 Apollo Drive

  Rosedale 0632

  Auckland, New Zealand

  www.harpercollins.co.nz

  United Kingdom

  HarperCollins Publishers Ltd.

  1 London Bridge Street

  London SE1 9GF, UK

  www.harpercollins.co.uk

  United States

  HarperCollins Publishers Inc.

  195 Broadway

  New York, NY 10007

  www.harpercollins.com

  *Though I had observed that whenever a patient on a TV show like Marcus Welby, M.D., or Ben Casey presented with odd symptoms, my father always made what proved to be the correct diagnosis long before the first commercial break.

  *Unless I was gravely ill or seriously injured—and I was almost never either of those things—I didn’t even rate the bedside manner. My father’s response when I cut a finger, stubbed a toe, twisted an ankle, or fell off my bicycle never varied: We’ll have to amputate. When a suture or two was probably called for, he made do with butterflying a pair of Band-Aids; when I fell off a stair railing and broke my arm, he set it with an ACE bandage and a flat plastic tool for scraping the ice off our windshield.

  *Von Harbou, screenwriter of Metropolis, was married to Fritz Lang from 1922 to 1933.