VLVL2 (14) Father of the Year + Question Mark

[Terrance]

Paul Nightingale wrote:
> 
> At Prairie's birth Zoyd has good reason to stay away if that's what he
> wants; at best sidelined, he could easily claim he has been excluded
> altogether. 

He could and he tries to use this excuse several times, but the text
doesn't permit it to stand: "Of course they would [invite him to take
part in the birth of his daughter] and so it came to pass ... (285). 

The narrative continues to offer him opportunities to walk
> away, leaving the child with Sasha permanently and just disappearing;
> that he doesn't begs the question as to the narrative function of this
> particular character in the final hundred pages or so. 

Actually, Zoyd does walk off a couple of times. In fact, he's not there
to help his wife out when she sinks into postpartum depression. He does
call Hub to let Hub know about the birth. But you've confused Hub's
volition with Zoyd's good will when you say that 
Hub goes there to help out because Zoyd sends him. 


He takes
> responsibility for bringing back Hub to be reconciled with Sasha
> (287-288). 

You'll have to be more specific, can't find this in the book.  



In the diaper scene (296) he realizes he "should have paid
> more attention, cared more for these small and at times even devotional
> he'd been taking for granted": difficult to dismiss as just one
> reference to good parenting when logic indicates he'd hardly take for
> granted something he'd hated doing, activities that hadn't become part
> of his routine. 

Prairie is not taken care of by Zoyd, she is describes as suffering from
a chronic illness. And, when she asks Zoyd is she is ever going to get
better, he has his first of many awakenings from irresponsible sleep.
The novel opens with Zoyd's irresponsible sleeping. Prairie has done all
the house chores and managed to get a ride to work, answer a call for
Zoyd and pin a note to the fridge ... so on. Zoyd thinks he has been
planning a gig for weeks, but he still doesn't have the dress, he
doesn't have a car to get to the gig, he doesn't have any smokes, he
doesn't have the money to pay for the dress, he does have some pot.
Expensive habit.