Fortunately, the Milk

Gaiman is a prolific award-winning author. His books often feature animals and otherworldly creatures who connect with human characters. Gaiman’s protagonists are frequently captured or transported into parallel universes or realities from which they must escape or embrace; this is exemplified in his works The Wolves in the Walls (2003) and The Graveyard Book (2008).

Gaiman’s antagonists often have eccentric and endearing qualities. For example, the main antagonist, the parallel “other” mother In Coraline (2002), truly loves the protagonist Coraline, seemingly more than her actual parent does. In Fortunately, the Milk, all antagonists have their softer moments. For example, the Queen of the Pirates compliments the father while trying to recruit him, and volcano god Splod helps the father explain “transtemporal metascience” to the group.

Gaiman explains that Fortunately, the Milk stems from his desire to redress the way fathers are portrayed in his books, specifically in The Day I Swapped My Dad for Two Goldfish (1997). Gaiman describes the father in The Day I Swapped My Dad for Two Goldfish as “not really a positive portrayal of fatherhood” (“Fortunately, the Milk.” Publishersweekly.com)

Both Fortunately, the Milk and The Day I Swapped My Dad for Two Goldfish start with the father reading his newspaper, and in both the children comment on it. In Fortunately, the Milk the young boy muses: “My dad was reading the paper. I do not think he pays a lot of attention to the world when he is reading his paper” (2). In The Day I Swapped my Dad for Two Goldfish, the young son says, “My dad doesn’t pay much attention to anything, when he’s reading his newspaper” (1).

However, the father in Fortunately, the Milk redeems himself, saving both the milk and the Universe, before going back to his newspaper. Gaiman said that he wanted to write a book:

[I]n which dads get to do all of the really cool, important and exciting things that dads normally get to do on a daily basis, like get captured by pirates, rescued by a time-traveling Stegosaurus in a balloon, […] and […] do the important dangerous thing that dads get to do best of all, which is go down to the corner shop and come back with some milk (“Teachers’ Guide to Fortunately, the Milk… by Neil Gaiman and Chris Riddell.” Media.bloomsbury.com).

At The Word Factory masterclass, held at Waterstones in Piccadilly in 2016, Gaiman shared that he uses unreliable narrators to give readers “a narrative voice that feels trustworthy; a comfortable friendly voice that says, take my hand, I’ll show you dark places, take you in to the forest and then let go and run away” (“An Evening With Neil Gaiman.” Wordsandpics.org).

In Fortunately, the Milk, the young boy is a reliable narrator. However, his father, who narrates the fantastic adventure he experiences on his way home, is an unreliable narrator. Both narrators are friendly and appear trustworthy, but the father is humorously trying to avoid answering a question that would expose his dillydallying by diverting his children down a more exciting path. Gaiman also uses this technique in his book The Ocean at the End of the Lane (2013), a work of magical realism. However, in an interview, Gaiman explains the difference in tone between the two books: “In The Ocean at the End of the Lane I want everything to convince you. But Fortunately, the Milk is not about convincing anyone. It’s about a dad entertaining his children” (Tucker, Nicholas. “Neil Gaiman Interview.” Booksforkeeps.co.uk).