Wallace presents a few father-son relationships in this novel, though Edward and William's drives its plot. Edward's own father, a hardworking—or maybe hard-drinking—farmer, has a traditional relationship with Edward, in that he expects Edward's obedience and help on the farm. Sandra's father loves his daughter with such fondness that he comes to believe his own childhood stories he tells about her, in which she hangs the moon in the sky.

Edward, in contrast, never seems quite comfortable in his role as a father. Though he loves his son and hopes to pass onto him some of his own virtues, "he could only stand so much love" (123). Because of this, he's only ever home on the weekends, and even then isn't fully comfortable or present. While William wishes that Edward had imparted some practical skills or serious knowledge on him, Edward seems incapable of engaging in any ways other than storytelling and joking. William's frustration with his father begins to dissipate, as he realizes, through retelling his father's life story, that Edward "is just being him, something he can't not be" (114). By the novel's end, he and Edward have reached a kind of understanding via William's patience and a kind of role reversal, in which William must take care of his dying father.