(Photo by Henry Braff)

Freud once wrote, “I cannot think of any need in childhood as strong as the need for a father’s protection.”

He would have loved Joshua Braff’s new book, The Daddy Diaries.

Funny, bittersweet and altogether moving, the novel is told from the perspective of a stay-at-home writer dad named Jay, who’s trying to figure out how to protect his children emotionally without them resenting him.

And, as it turns out, that’s not such an easy task.

Braff’s third novel (The Unthinkable Thoughts Of Jacob Green and Peepshow being his first two) is a charming and gentle study of family dynamics, written with finesse and heart. It’s the study of marriage, friends and how teen angst can settle on a kid like an airborne fever that has to break on its own while their parents wait it out patiently (and not so patiently).  Braff has dead-on comic timing and an almost preternatural penchant for finding the poignancy in the unlikeliest of places. Whether Jay is holed up in a New York hotel with his gloomy teenage son or trapped in a bathroom with a disrobing mother of one of his daughter’s friends, The Daddy Diaries is a love letter to fatherhood, marriage, friendship and getting older.

The Daddy Diaries is a refreshing take on the 21st century American family and Braff writes with the kind of open-hearted velocity that practically turns the pages for you.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lNId6M4SSNk