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Sterling Lord

Sterling Lord has been a literary agent for more than 60 years.

Ken Kesey's bus

When Kerouac Met Kesey

The two counterculture heroes, one representing the Beat ’50s and one the psychedelic ’60s, had a lot less in common than you might expect

by Sterling Lord | Thursday, August 25, 2011
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THIS WEEK’S ARCHIVE PICK

2nd Look

Fathers and Sons

by James McConkey

“Could we have been better parents?” At 87, Cornell emeritus professor James McConkey reflects on the inadvertent ways that parents—especially fathers—shape their children. “Most parents don’t want their children to suffer the kind of grief inflicted on them by their own parents,” he says in this essay from our Spring 2008 issue. “By saving them from that, though, they may inflict upon their children difficulties of another kind.” As the father to three sons, McConkey is acutely aware of how his relationship with his own father informed his relationship with his children. His essay “What Kind of Father Am I?” is a meditation on aging, parenthood, and the bond between fathers and sons.