"DONALD BARTHELME: Kidding Father was an activity that took seven of us to do, and there were only six of us. Putting Father down was the main family sport. JO BRANS: Is there any particular reason for the number of fathers in your work who are being done away with in one form or another? I’m thinking of The Dead Father. Using a father and beating him—is there anything autobiographical...? BARTHELME: Well, not directly. The relation is the universal problem. You remember, I think in Gertrude Stein there’s a story about the guy who seizes his father by the hair and drags him out of the house into the orchard, and a certain point the father who is being dragged says, “Stop, stop. In my time I did not drag my father beyond this tree.”"
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“Interview with Jo Brans”, p. 294
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Not-Knowing%3A_The_Essays_and_Interviews_of_Donald_Barthelme
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Not-Knowing: The Essays and Interviews of Donald Barthelme
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