Raising the Dad: A Novel

"A fearless, angry, brutally funny poke in the eye of the American music machine and pop culture industry. Tom Matthews' memorable, highly readable first novel is that rare literary artifact - a satire with teeth." —Tom Perrotta on Like We Care

Raising the Dad is a small masterpiece that charts the all-too-familiar forces hastening the decline of the average American family, and in it Tom Matthews has produced a classic novel of modern life.

In Raising the Dad, the dysfunction in John Husted’s family is vexing enough: His marriage has slipped into a state of passionless functionality. His teenage daughter is growing distant and mean. His older brother—a washed-up heavy-metal singer—is fresh out of jail, and their mother may be slipping away to dementia. Things just seemed to veer off course since the death of the family patriarch many years earlier.

But then John is stunned to learn that his father’s fate was not what he had long believed it to be. It falls upon John to decide if he should break the news to his family, knowing that the truth could make the family whole – or smash it to pieces.

“Raising the Dad mines family dysfunction for all of its complex truths and wild emotions. Tom Matthews strikes the damnedest balance—aching loss, brutal humor—as his befuddled protagonist deals with mind-blowing circumstances.”—Darin Strauss, author of Chang and Eng and Half-A-Life

“The sensitivity and unexpected humor that Tom Matthews brings to this emotionally complex book extends to the protagonist’s rock singer brother.” —Producer Butch Vig (Nirvana, Foo Fighters)