The Firstborn

An intimate and lyrical consideration of what it means to be a father

This moment of meeting seemed to be a birth-time for both of us; her first and my second life. Nothing, I knew, would be the same again . . .

Full of warmth and candor, this essay composed on the occasion of his daughter’s birth is one of Laurie Lee’s most delightful and inspiring works. From the moment Jessy is born, “purple and dented like a bruised plum,” to the first time his kiss quiets her cries, Lee describes the joys and responsibilities of new fatherhood with a poet’s precision and boundless capacity for wonder.