an imaginary review
by uzwi
In this curiously involuted thriller of the near future, the father is not dead but absent, if only temporarily. The son must act for him, whether he wishes to or not. They exist in the most ideal loop of anxiety, the father a ghost in the son’s brain, the son a sub-routine of the father’s competence. They are a single entity, the hero only completed by his father’s wealth and prior achievement; the father present in the world only through his son’s ability to act in it. Whose anxiety is the greatest ? It is hardly possible to venture a guess. They describe between them not so much a main character as a desirable state, a circle whose perfection is forbidden to the son, no longer obtainable by the father.
the m john harrison blog 
isn’t that The Dead Father, by Donald Bathelme?
sorry, Barthelme
This must be Question #5 and the previous is probably #4.
Or maybe the other way up.
& I thought I was channeling Dick Francis… There’s the power of the archetype for you. Is it any good, the Bartheleme ?
Hi Z. Nice one.
Sounds a little like the first story in the Fifth Head of Cerberus.
Any more bids ?
…Greek tragedy written by William Gibson
i think it was called: Paternal Noise
The blurb is something like:
The Dead Father is 3,200 cubits long and being hauled on cables across the ground. He’s not entirely dead: he is past his prime, sexually and authoritatively… vain and foolish, but he looms large.
It’s not so much a book as a series of cartoons. But I think some of them are brilliant. “If your father’s name is Hiram or Saul, flee into the woods… “