RaveAirmailThe letters are chronological through Patrick’s college days (Harvard), and his move to what was then Tanganyika (present-day Tanzania), where he lived for 25 years as a farmer and hunting guide...Father and son both write beautifully about landscapes, birds, hunting, and fishing, and are sentimental about missing each other...As years pass, Papa dispenses advice and opinions about sports, education, women, ex-wives, painting, avoiding the draft, money, buying land...In all his letters Patrick is a dutiful middle son prone to smoothing problems between his brothers and father...Ernest is always encouraging but increasingly demanding and judgmental, bragging about sending them money then complaining about it, criticizing their girlfriends and wives...Ernest’s mania overcame him, and he raged on pounding his chest until his churlish behavior reflected all the virulence of the manhood he had created not just for himself but for his sons...Patrick loved him anyway and writes in the epilogue that Ernest tried very hard to be a good father...Papa’s letters become increasingly bitter...Patrick’s letters are very different, wanting to be as good a son as he can be, a better man than Ernest on the best day he ever had.
