Friday Five: historian, writer, and Dad Lit podcaster Dan Roberts

With Father’s Day just around the corner, it seems appropriate and timely to shine the Friday Five spotlight on Daniel Roberts, a historian, writer, and host of the Dad Lit podcast, which is available on Apple, Spotify, and YouTube.

A professional historian, Dan has many published works of history, but no published works of fiction — not yet, at least. He is the author of the biography, The American: The Life, Times, and War of Basil Antonelli, the story of an Italian-American immigrant that Amazon describes as “a quintessentially American biography of immigration, assimilation, and sacrifice.” Currently he is on submission with two novels, The Black Hole Pact, a Sci Fi novel about a woman investigating her father’s role in saving the world from a killer asteroid, and Cursed at the Hanging Pine Inn, a horror novel best described as The Shining meets Frank Capra’s It’s a Wonderful Life.

He established the Dad Lit Pod earlier this year, not long after a bit of hand-wringing in The New York Times about the disappearance of the literary man (a topic I also blogged about). So the topics Dan delves into on his podcast have never been more timely.

As you might expect from such a booster of Dad Lit, Dan is himself a dad. He’s the father to a four-year-old girl and has been blissfully married for eight years.

Read on for Daniel’s thoughts on his podcast, his passion for writing, and his ideas about this new genre of Dad Lit.

1. What inspired you to launch the Dad Lit podcast, and how has your journey as a father and writer shaped its mission to explore fatherhood and literature?

The Dad Lit Pod is a direct result of a critique I received from my friend Nicole on my first manuscript, Water Hazard. … [It] takes the colorful archetype of the angry police chief and turns it on its head. … Water Hazard was meant to have sort of a Carl Hiaasen and Elmore Leonard feel.

Nicole and some other friends read Water Hazard. I hosted “book club” meeting with all of them after they all finished and we discussed the book. During the meeting Nicole said the following:

“Dan, I actually, really like this. It is super fun. BUT, to be honest, I could never imagine seeing this in a bookstore and picking it up. Who is the audience for this? Who are you going to sell this to? It has a lot of boomer humor. It is like something my dad would enjoy if he ever read books.”

I didn’t realize it, but I had written a Dad book. It was a book about being a Dad, written by a Dad, that was ultimately for Dads.

Then, I looked at my three other novel manuscripts. Every one of them had a Dad contending with the challenges of: teaching, providing, loss, pride, despair, duty, marriage, and stress. These are all of the things that come with being a Dad.

So, I decided to lean into it. I declared myself a writer of Dad Lit, and became the first self-identifying Dad Lit author.

I would like to say that it was tied to the birth of my daughter in 2020, but most of these ideas were ideas I had from before she was born. Dad Lit comes to me simply by instinct. Those are the stories I felt like telling.

2. How would you define the “Dad Lit” genre? What sets it apart from other literary categories?

Very generally, Dad Lit is fiction/nonfiction written by, about, or for dads. I see it as a marketing category, a table in Barnes and Noble, with a sign that says, “Books Your Dad Will Actually Like.”

It is more akin to the wrongly disparaged “Chick Lit.” Dad Lit, like Chick Lit, has certain tones, certain characters, certain voices, and certain themes.

Dad Lit can run the gamut of genres including books for kids (Stephen Crane’s The Red Badge of Courage) and absurdist contemporary literary fiction (Don DeLillo’s White Noise).

I like to joke that Old Yeller, by Fred Gipson – while written for children – is a work of high Dad Lit. It is a story about growing up, but it is also a story about what it means and what it means and what it takes to be a Dad. Old Yeller serves as surrogate father and friend to the young Travis Coates, who, himself, is thrust prematurely into the role of “elder man of the house.” Travis finds Old Yeller to be dutiful, wise, loyal, self-sacrificing, and brave. These are all qualities that Travis needs to learn to be a “father.” The ending, when Travis must shoot the frothing “hydrophobic” Yeller, is particularly tragic because it represents the death of innocence and the ascendancy of Travis to true manliness. He is capable of recognizing when an act is necessary, even when it causes incredible personal pain. The most essential element of Dad Lit is learning to understand and master emotions and personal needs to make rational decisions. …

Dad Lit is less about empathy (unless it serves to make you a better father) and more often about lessons and self-mastery. Authors of Dad Lit write about contending with selfish urges, challenging preconceived ideas, combatting impossible opponents, and placing your family and your community’s needs above yourself.

I will note that one does not need to be a dad to write Dad Lit. I think one of the most fantastic works of Dad Lit of the past decade is Taffy Brodesser-Akner’s Fleishman Is in Trouble. It is about a father and wife dealing with the collapse of their family in the wake of a divorce. It is told from a woman’s perspective, but the glare is on the father and it has amazing observations about modern fatherhood.  

3. Which three to five modern writers (those who have published in the last five years or so) do you consider exemplary figures of “Dad Lit,” and what specific qualities in their work make them stand out in this space? (Think of this, maybe, as a modern Dad Lit canon.)

Daniel Friedman’s Buck Schatz series (Running Out of Road, Don’t Ever Look Back, and Don’t Ever Get Old), which was completed within the last five years, is high Dad Lit. Buck is a retired police detective from Memphis who also happens to be Jewish and hilariously irreverent. Friedman tackles the very Jewish pursuit of a character struggling with moral perfection in an imperfect world. Shatz is a grandfather who lost his son and goes on post-retirement journeys with his grandson. They recover Nazi gold and ensure a serial killer gets what’s coming to him. In the series, Buck Schatz is knocking on death’s door, but he is still learning to be a better grandfather, husband, and person – long after his “prime.”

Dad Lit also has an element of traditionalism and, while not required, it tends to have center-right and conservative political elements. Lionel Shriver (once a Mom Lit author with We Need to Talk About Kevin) writes voicey lit about family and politics. Her satire Mania reads like a phone call from a riled-up father-in-law after a particularly convincing Fox News report. That is a woman who knows her Dad Lit.

Dads also love crime fiction. I think it is the fantasy and the release of living freely or, alternatively, restoring order. Both come with a terrific sense of satisfaction. If you want the best in crime, I would point to the indie press Shotgun Honey instead of just one author. Shotgun Honey publishes rural crime fiction and is based in West Virginia. Their stuff is interesting, occasionally pulpy, and always riveting. Dark Neon and Dirt, by Thomas Trang, is Michael Mann-style Dad Lit. Rick Childers’ Turkeyfoot is gritty and authentic. Those are just two of many great books over there.

4. In today’s literary landscape, how do you view the representation of male writers, particularly those tackling themes of fatherhood or masculinity, and what gaps or opportunities do you see for them?

Literary men are voicey, moral, unwieldy, independent, ambitious, and impatient. I find these traits to be virtues. I look for these qualities in the authors I read. BUT, I’m not the one putting up the money for editors, covers, publicist, marketers, printers, etc.

From a business perspective, being a purveyor of Dad Lit is no longer easy. The big names (King, Wolfe, Chandler, Clancy, etc.) have a pattern of excellence that reader trust. The rest of us are a financial risk.

The major U.S. and U.K. Publishers are trying to make money. Part of making money is having efficient processes and knowing your customers.

Women buy and read the bulk of new fiction. (including Dan Friedman’s Buck Schatz series by his own admission) Women earn 70% of fine arts undergraduate and graduate degrees. Women make up a considerable portion of agents and frontline editors at the major presses. Libraries are the largest single customer for books. Last I checked, 85% of all librarians are women. I don’t have the numbers on this, but I am almost certain that most books men receive as gifts are purchased for them by women.

Even though some people claim that “universal talents” break through this gender barrier, that is the exception to the rule.

If I put the best Tom Clancy ever wrote in front of my wife she might read it eventually, but she will never enjoy it like she enjoys Sarah J. Maas. And, I do not expect her to.

But the disadvantage male authors face is not romantasy. Our biggest competition is media designed to function like cocaine for the human brain. This includes: video games, sports gambling, and pornography, of which men are the predominant consumers.

To even get started with a new male customer, an author needs to convince a guy or a kid to turn off their phone – a near impossibility. Then, the work needs to be interesting enough to get the reader to commit themselves to a medium that takes hours to pay off in the reward center of the brain. (Think Game of Thrones, and the beheading of Ned Stark or the Red Wedding, and the build up it took for that amount of narrative shock and satisfaction.)

If I have an issue with publishing it is that I find it disconcerting to hear that male authors are told they are “too voicey,” their characters are “unlikable,” or, their morality or politics are “countervailing to current trends.”

When I hear stuff like that, I want to drag agents and editors to a computer screen and show them video games. Men love foul-mouthed video game characters who will hamstring an enemy and then slit their throat so they can drink the corpse’s blood from a chalice. It is called Warhammer 40K, Call of Duty, and God of War – the kids love it.

I know it seems counterintuitive but if you get men reading Warhammer 40K tie-in novels you can eventually get them to read anything. Once you have their attention, you move them to Tom Clancy, hit’em with Tom Wolf’s The Right Stuff. Once we have them reading Hemingway hunting lions in Africa or Orwell the ship has been righted – you got yourself a reader.

And yet, even with the rejection and the risk in time and energy and money to write and publish a book, men are still writing them. One would think these realities would discourage male authors, but it doesn’t.

They still write and they indie publish and they start podcasts and writing clubs. This doesn’t surprise me because their books are about this very theme, overcoming odds, being heard, and gaining respect through action.

5. For aspiring writers who want to explore themes like those in Dad Lit or break into podcasting, what advice would you offer to help them find their voice and connect with an audience?

Always make yourself a mission statement. My mission statement as a writer is:

I want to write novels where the action is clear, and the reader wants to know what is on the next page.

If I accomplish that simple mission, I consider myself a success.

With The Dad Lit Podcast, I want to create a space where I can explore literature (fiction and non-fiction) by dads, for dads, and about dads.

From those principles spring my decision making.

Follow Dan’s X/Twitter account, @TheDadLitPod, for updates and related content.