Fathers

Richard Taylor

Each of the men in our lives can at once be a father, a son, a husband, a brother, a friend. In this biographical trip through history described in a collection of essays, Richard Taylor explores the interconnections between fathers and father figures in his life and his family, from the Civil War through the present.

What Others Say About Fathers

We create our world from imagination and memory, both personal memory and history, which is our collective memory. In Fathers Richard Taylor pursues his progenitors, gleaning what he can from history and memory to imagine their lives and how their lives have informed his own. Drawn to history in childhood by his enigmatic father and his Uncle Louis—both delightful characters—Taylor searches for his forefather Taylors, who fought in the Revolutionary War and on both sides in the Civil War. With warm humor and precise language he allows us into his extended family and describes his struggles as he eschews lawyering to become a teacher and writer. Fathers is filled with a contagious generosity, a sweet humility and finally great gratitude.

—Michael Morane

True to his title there are many fathers (along with a few prominent women) celebrated here, foremost his own father Joe Howard "Buzz" Taylor, as well as ancestors like Reuben Taylor, first of his Kentucky line, surrogate fathers including his Uncle Louis and best friend David Orr, and his son, now a father himself, continuing the generational saga. But recalling that the child is father of the man, the chief reason to welcome this book is for the insights it affords into Taylor's early life story, including nostalgic accounts of his childhood in and around Louisville, Kentucky, vivid portraits of the people who shaped his development, and his reckoning with the fraught history of the Civil War and his legacy as a southerner. Taylor says this may be as close to an autobiography as he is apt to write, which is all the more reason to cherish these sketches from the life of a true Kentucky literary treasure.

—Larry W. Moore, publisher, Broadstone Books

Richard Taylor's memoir speaks in two voices, one voice of the active participant in his early years; the other voice belongs to the historian as he gives the account of his ancestors' lives. He brings us the immediacy of the past. The reader can stroke the fur, wade the river, much like Proust.

—Nana Lampton

Details and Ordering

Publication Date: October 15, 2023
Format: Softcover, 6" x 9"
ISBN: 978-1-961127-02-9
Price: $23.00

About the Author

Richard Taylor is the author of numerous collections of poetry, two historical novels, and several books relating to Kentucky history, including Elkhorn: Evolution of a Kentucky Landmark. A former Kentucky poet laureate, he has received two creative writing fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts as well as an Al Smith Award from the Kentucky Arts Council. Educated at the University of Kentucky (bachelors and Ph.D. in English), he also holds a masters degree (English) and a J.D. from the University of Louisville. Practicing law for a few months, he gave up legal practice, a leave-taking he regards as his gift to the Commonwealth of Kentucky. During graduate school he taught in high schools across Kentucky with the Poetry-in-the-Schools Program through the Kentucky Arts Council, editing an anthology of student writing called Cloud Bumping. Embarking on a career in education, he taught at Kentucky State University in Frankfort until retiring in 2008. During that time he taught in the Governor's School for the Arts as well as serving as director of the Governor's Scholars Program on two campuses. He also spent a year in Denmark as a scholar-teacher in the Fulbright Program, also teaching a graduate course at Kangwon University in Korea as well as short periods teaching abroad in England and Ireland in a studies-abroad program. He has received publication awards from the Kentucky Historical Society and the Thomas C. Clark Medallion for his Elkhorn book as well as receiving a Distinguished Professor Award at KSU. Recently retired after fourteen years from Transylvania University as Keenan Visiting Writer, he is co-owner of Poor Richard's Books and lives on a small farm outside Frankfort, Kentucky.

Photo from Transylvania University