Measuring Up

May 3, 2021
Canadian journalist Robson (Quinn) reflects on the death of his father and the emotional awakening it inspired in this quietly moving memoir. He begins in 2015, when his 59-year-old father, Rick, suffered a stroke. Though the initial prognosis was positive, swelling in Rick’s brain soon killed him. Despite the fact that they’d been very close, Robson always struggled with feelings of inadequacy around Rick, an expert craftsman and contractor whose practical skills never trickled down to his son. “He had assembled the world we lived in and he, quite literally, held it together,” writes Robson. In an effort to keep his father’s memory alive, he set out to renovate his parents’ Toronto home, where his mother still lived. As he works away at the project using his father’s tools, he unspools fond recollections of their time together, writing about his father taking him to hockey practice as a boy in the ’90s, the “dadest of dad jokes,” and the huge impact his father made on others—as seen in one particularly heartrending passage when his father helped a stranger overcome addiction. This powerful story of loss and healing demonstrates the positive difference one life can make. Agent: Rick Broadhead, Rick Broadhead and Assoc.