Father Knows Less, or: "Can I Cook My Sister?": One Dad's Quest to Answer His Son's Most Baffling Questions

Summary

A New York Times editor sets out to answer the peculiarly marvelous questions of his precocious young son—and winds up on an unexpected journey of his own.

Wendell Jamieson's son, Dean, has always had a penchant for…odd questions. "Dad," he asked, apropos of nothing, "what would hurt more—getting run over by a car, or getting stung by a jellyfish?" "Dad, why do policemen like donuts?" "What's it feel like to get stabbed?" "Does Mona Lisa wear shoes?" "Can I cook my sister?"

Because "Dad" was a newspaperman, he decided to seek out answers—and got swept up in the hunt. He spoke to movie directors and ship captains and brain surgeons and stabbing victims and lottery winners and museum curators and politicians and judges and compulsive shoppers and mothers-in-law and magicians—even Yoko Ono and a dominatrix.

But what began as a lark quickly grew into something larger. Blending a charming father-son journey with the surprising, sometimes hilarious questions and answers it spawned, Father Knows Less offers a heartwarming exploration of that childlike curiosity that lives within us all.