Dan's Papers - June 13, 2008 - Dan's Book Review: Assisted Loving

The quest for love can be exhausting - for anyone, let alone a recently widowed 80-year-old with a bum hip and stiff competition. Or, worse, a 45-year-old writer whose personal and professional shortcomings prevent him from accepting those of others. How to keep the romance alive when hopes are repeatedly dashed? The answer, according to an initially reluctant Bob, is simple: turn to those who are genetically required to support, encourage and, above all else, love you, no matter what.

At the start of Assisted Loving: True Tales of Double Dating with my Dad (HarperCollins, 2008), Bob visits his mother's grave with his father, Joe. The scene is enough to draw tears from even the most hard-hearted of readers; Bob's mother has passed away only a month before after a long, difficult illness, his father hobbles slowly through the cemetery, then softly croons his wife's favorite song, and after a few reflective moments, Joe tells Bob that he has a plot right next to his parents. Life, love, loss - all the makings of a great literary tearjerker. You might be crying your eyes out...if you weren't laughing.

The sad, serious scene, like most scenes in Assisted Loving, is lightened by Bob's simultaneously condescending and endearing inner monologue. He notes Joe's slow walk and need for a hip replacement, and then silently complains that his yellow cardigan (already a major fashion don't for Bob, a style writer for The New York Times) is "a fruit salad of stains," and in need of a dry cleaner. He's moved by Joe's sweet singing, but quickly quells the emotion, since crying in front of his father would be "so uncomfortable." And while he acknowledges the thoughtfulness of the plot purchase, he has no desire to be buried on the south shore of Long Island - unless it's in the Hamptons. It's a careful balance of wit and truth that Bob maintains throughout the novel, so that whenever readers start to grow even more frustrated with him than he is with himself, he reminds them that, yes, he knows he's a man with major issues.

But doesn't a man with major issues deserve love, too? It's a question Bob seeks to answer for good, just as his father, who's equally charming and equally flawed, decides to take a chance on the dating game again. Bob is tired of being alone. He's tired of spending the holidays by himself at his super-successful brother's posh New York City apartment while his brother and family travel. He's tired of his circle of single friends growing smaller. So tired, in fact, that for a while, he throws himself into recruiting well-educated, well-to-do, silver-haired foxes for his father to avoid dealing with his own relationship failures - even going so far as to fill out an application for the reality show, "Who Wants to Marry My Dad?" His father, also tired of being alone less than a year after losing his wife and looking for a fun bridge partner, appreciates the help (and occasionally even asks for it), but more than anything, wants his son to find happiness.

Relying on each other in ways they'd never anticipated a father and son would so late in life, Bob and Joe travel across Long Island on their dating spree, into Manhattan and all the way to Palm Beach, via wheelchair and convertible. It's a bumpy ride, and one that tests their ability to love in more than ways than one. Toward the end, Bob muses, "I pace around the apartment all evening. I can feel something pushing me, as if I'm guided by Dad's voice, possessed. He may not be so worldly. But he's been so brave about love. Why have I spent so much of my adult life afraid of it?"

Bob may never fully realize the reasons for his fear, but after months of double dating with his octogenarian dad, he learns at least one very important lesson: You can always teach an old dog - even one with major issues - new tricks. And after following Bob and Joe on the funny, heartfelt journey, all readers, even those with parents who haven't yet qualified for AARP benefits, will find themselves making an unprompted phone call or sending an unsolicited email to Mom or Dad, just to say hi.

Bob Morris is a frequent contributor to The New York Times Sunday "Style" section, where his "Age of Dissonance" column ran for eight years. He's been a commentator on National Public Radio's "All Things Considered," and a contributor to The New York Times Magazine, The New Yorker and Travel + Leisure, among other publications. He grew up on Long Island and now lives in New York City.