If you’re like me, you barely notice when Father’s Day comes around. A good wife will remind you, and maybe do something nice for you on that day, otherwise, we’d probably never know.

So many men today grew up without fathers—sometimes literally. For those of us who were fortunate enough to know ours, quite often we saw our fathers only sporadically as part of a custody arrangement. Even before our parents’ divorces, our fathers were physically absent often, and emotionally absent otherwise. They weren’t all that interested in us once we were no longer cute little toddlers—if they even were then.

Then we felt guilty if they ever made an effort to take an interest in us for a little while, because by then we knew they had a lot to do that was far more important than us.

Beyond that, some fathers were abusive, in one way or another.

There’s a whole generation of us out here now, trying to behave differently than our own fathers did, and giving our kids the advantages we never had. If you’re like me, even though all that is behind you and you’re doing the best you can with the cards you were dealt, you often reflect on your younger years and wonder if you might have made better decisions had you enjoyed the benefit of a dad who tried to prepare you for what life had in store.

Before I first began writing Paradox, I wanted to tell a fun men’s adventure tale that involved time travel. Then, while the idea germinated, I couldn’t help speculating on some “what if”s:

When I was a young man, what if I knew what I know now? What if I had a role model to clue me in on life, so I didn’t have to learn everything the hard way? What could I have accomplished if even a few of my ignorant decisions were never made?

In Book One of the Paradox Series, our hero is just about to enter puberty, going through life like many of us did at that age, with no dad, assuming that our single mothers and the culture at large were guiding us competently on the path to manhood. And doomed to a series of failures, defeats, bewilderment and disillusionment over how nothing works the way we were told it would.

Our hero encounters a mysterious uncle who begins to turn his life onto a new path right away. Out of all the advantages this new role model provides, perhaps the most valuable is the wisdom of how to deal with other people in general, and females in particular.

Paradox follows the hero from his pre-teen years into his late 20s. There are four books in the series published so far. The fifth one releases on Father’s Day (Sunday 6/16/24). Of the reviews these books have received so far, the consensus is that they’re full of wisdom that boys and men need, but mostly, they’re fun.