I knew I wanted to write something that would capture a tender moment between a parent and a child, and something that the parent wouldn't tire of reading again and again, and something the child wouldn't tire of hearing again and again.
A tender caring young man.
The last lines of the book's final poem, "Gone, Galore," leaven the suffering in "The Glimmering Room" with a tender touch, like a parent brushing the hair from a child's eyes: The voices of children live on inside us Strange sister, Walk into the white sun With me.
The central character of "Yellow Dog" is an actor and writer named Xan Meo, who considers himself "the dream husband": "a fifty-fifty parent, a tender and punctual lover, a fine provider, an amusing companion, a versatile and unsqueamish handy man, a subtle and accurate cook, and a gifted masseur who, moreover (and despite opportunities best described as 'ample'), never fools around".
In a tender poem about his parents, he remembers them, from the distance of his middle age, as resembling the "simple toys of my childhood," turning in circles, humming softly, raising a leg, moving slowly from side to side with the same rhythm, "the spring in their belly and the key in their back.
Sai Baba added, in explanation of the fact that he was living in a Mosque, that while still a tender child his Brahmin parents handed him over to the care of a fakir who brought him up.
"Elementary Particles" tells the story of Bruno and Michel, a pair of half-brothers who are palmed off to grandparents at a tender age by irresponsible hippie parents.
The Elementary Particles tells the story of Bruno and Michel, a pair of half-brothers who are palmed off to grandparents at a tender age by irresponsible hippie parents.
The main character, Roger, doesn't speak until nearly a third of the way in, the early part of the book being given over to a tender account of his young parents' struggle to make ends meet.
Buy it at BOL Just Like You (written and illustrated by Jan Fearnley, Mammoth, £4.99) is a tender celebration of the love between parent and child, and it's an indication of Fearnley's sure and subtle touch that the delicately balanced text never goes over the top into schmaltz.
