Ben Marcus has said that his parents were normal and loving, but his treatment of father/son characters is profoundly sad.
"He had a large, sad face and he was bald. These men were everywhere. The cattle in our lives we hardly even see."
His stories usually focus on family units or small groups. The father figure is always oppressed. The first 4 stories in Leaving The Sea follow roughly the same pattern.
What Have You Done: A troubled son, newly a father, returns home but cannot love his family. His family doesn't trust him or believe anything he says based on an unsubscribed incident in his past.
I Can Say Many Nice Things: A hapless professor is teaching a course on a cruise ship. His wife doesn't love him, his class doesn't respect him, and he is harried by an unbalanced, young, female student.
The Dark Arts: A young man is mysteriously sick. His girlfriend doesn't love him and his father is a weak and feeble man unable to help.
Rollingwood: A father is asked, unexpectedly, to care for his young son. The son's mother doesn't love him, disappears for days, and the father is forced to juggle work and son without appreciation or love.
Marcus beats on the fathers in his other books too. Notable American Women features a helpless father trapped in a hole, The Flame Alphabet features a father crushed under the weight of mysterious illness, a dying wife, a poison daughter, kidnapping, forced labor, etc. etc. Needless to say, there are a lot of fathers crawling around, hiding in holes, accepting emasculation, failing.
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