![]() ![]() ![]() To say that these boys grew up in his heroic shadow really does seem to be true, complete with attending the launch of the ship, being feted on it before it set off for duty, corresponding with the crew and playing with rough-hewn toys made for them on it. ![]() Back in the 1940s, a hero was treated like one, with lavish tributes and full military honors at burial, even a Liberty Ship named for him. But Barney Darnton has always loomed very large in the mind of this son and also of his older brother, historian Robert Darnton. Longtime New York Times journalist John Darnton never knew his father, Barney, a war correspondent for the same newspaper, killed only a year after his birth. Yet they could not be more different, in style, substance and affect. Two books, one American, one British, both quests of exploration and discovery about a long-dead father and his family by a writer who is now himself something of a patriarch in search of understanding his heritage and that of his children. Knopf 348 pages $27.95) My Father's Fortune A Life By Michael Frayn (Metropolitan Books/ Henry Holt 273 pages $25) ![]()
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