SURROGATE DADS: INTERROGATING FATHERHOOD IN WILL SELF’S THE BOOK OF DAVE DANIEL LUKES “A father is a man who fails every day.” 1 Abstract Will Self’s sixth novel, The Book of Dave (2006) develops the British writer’s ongoing interest in fathers and children, and fatherhood as a key nexus where masculinity and patriarchy are reproduced. The nov- el channels and critiques various types of narrative, including the “dad lit” genre, best represented by the popular novels of Nick Hornby and Tony Parsons, the post-apocalyptic and dystopian idiolect science fiction tradition of Anthony Burgess’ A Clockwork Orange and Rus- sell Hoban’s Riddley Walker, and social phenomena such as “new” fatherhood and the “father’s rights” movement. With wit, insight, anger, and compassion, Self’s novel engages and interrogates matters of paternity, patriarchy, power, the religions of the father, the malaise of millennial British working-class masculinities, and the question of what it might mean to be a post-patriarchal dad. The topic of fatherhood is one of Will Self’s major concerns, and spans the writer’s oeuvre from his early satirical fictions to his latter, weightier works. Self, who has four children, has gravitated through- out his writing to narratives concerning fathers and children, and fa- ther-son relationships, in particular ones that involve surrogate, non- biological, foster- and father-figure mentors. As one of the central places where masculinity is reproduced, and the male body fashioned and coerced into citizenship, Self’s fiction recognizes how fatherhood is worthy of particular critical attention, and hovers over this node, returning to it again and again, with observations on how through the 1 Michael Chabon, Manhood for Amateurs, New York: HarperCollins, 2000, 7.