Failed dictator Joseph Stalin failed as a father too. After his son Yakov’s unsuccessful suicide attempt, Stalin mocked him, “He can’t even shoot straight.” When Yakov was captured by the Red Army, Stalin refused to trade a German officer to save him. Yakov died in a concentration camp, reportedly by throwing himself onto an electric fence. For the story of another bad dad, read The Great Stork Derby, based on an actual contest in which a husband pressures his wife to have babies for cash and, fifty years later, learns the true meaning of fatherhood. Read more about the book in NOVELS.
