SOURCE: Epstein, Joseph. “Father Knows Best.” New Criterion 18, no. 7 (March 2000): 58-62.

In the following review, Epstein explores Naipaul's relationship with his father as found in the letters collected in Between Father and Son.

Despite the implications of the marital misadventures of a certain gentleman from Thebes, a fellow who wed with all too little forethought, there is not much evidence that a mother exerts a more telling influence over a son than a father. Just as often—I would guess more often—the father is the more significant figure, for good and ill. Having a father who is benevolent or unjust, honorable or corrupt, cheerful or grim, a success or a failure in life, can, along with so many other things, weigh in heavily on the outlook, the ambition, the confidence, and the ultimate fate of a son. The kind of father one gets, of course, comes under...