Years of training and a successful psychotherapy practice taught Jonathan Diamond how to guide others through the grieving process. Then he learned his own father, with whom he shared a tumultuous relationship, was dying. Suddenly, Diamond found himself ambushed by the intensity of his own feelings. The son of a popular Princeton professor, Diamond alone knew what his father's adoring students and admiring colleagues did not: the explosive rage, the outbursts of violence, the unbearable anxiety—and the equally fierce love that father and son felt for each other nonetheless.
For men whose relationship with their fathers has been marred by conflict, abuse, or indifference, death extinguishes any hope of really knowing the man. Even before their fathers die, these men's grief is more about the loss of what could have been than the loss of what was. Many try to escape their feelings with anger or avoidance only to find that neither brings relief.
While navigating his own emotions, Diamond discovered that mourning a violent and abusive father becomes an attempt to take back what was stolen—an act of defiance and hope. In Fatherless Sons, the author shares with great candor his personal journey through this largely uncharted territory. Drawing upon his own experiences and those shared by his clients, Diamond provides tools for untangling the confusion in the father-son relationship, releasing the past, and celebrating the good. On this road, many men will discover for the first time an opportunity to make peace with their deceased fathers, interrupt the cycle of violence, and free their own children from a legacy of unfinished grieving and unacknowledged pain.
Whether it is yourself you see in these pages or someone you love, here you will find many moving, illuminating, and ultimately redemptive stories framed by Diamond's vivid analysis and reflections. Men and those who love them will find Fatherless Sons a powerful celebration of healing and a path to reconciliation and acceptance.

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