Ten fictional kids with deadbeat and/or absent dads

At The Hairpin, Julie Buntin came up with a list of favorite literary kids with deadbeat and/or absent dads, including:

CARRIE WHITE
Carrie, Stephen King

When I was a kid my mom did everything so well I wondered what the point of men—of dads—was at all. In the future, around the time that people replaced food with all-purpose vitamin pills and wore only spandex jumpsuits, women would run earth, and men would exist on a separate planet. Now and then everyone would get together to make some babies, but that would be the end of it. Outside of reproduction, what was a man’s purpose?

Carrie’s universe, not to mention her abusive mother, might be the best counterargument to my childhood vision. The isolated, suffocating femininity of Carrie’s life—the women’s bodies in the steamy shower, Margaret White hissing dirty pillows, the sunbathing teenaged neighbor half-naked on a beach chair, all that condemned, pent-up sexuality without outlet—is the atmosphere that feeds Carrie’s increasing rage. It’s implied that Carrie’s destructive telekinetic powers are the result of her conception by marital rape. An act of violence committed by her own father forced her into the world—why shouldn’t she be a monster?

Read about another book on the list.

Carrie is on Gregg Olsen's top ten list of deadly YA books and James Dawson's top ten list of books to get you through high school.

--Marshal Zeringue