What We Lost

Author, noted literary critic, and columnist Dale Peck shares the story of his father’s abusive childhood in What We Lost (2003), a memoir with fictional elements. The story follows twelve-year-old Dale Peck Sr. as he briefly escapes the emotional and physical violence of his crowded Long Island home, spending a formative year and a half at his uncle’s dairy farm in upstate New York. What We Lost was a Randy Shilts Award Nominee in 2004.

Narrated from a third-person perspective, What We Lost is divided into two parts. Part 1 tells the story of Dale’s childhood. Dale Peck Sr., referred to throughout as “the boy,” is small for his age. He lives in an old, ramshackle octagonal home in Brentwood, Long Island, where he shares a room with his seven brothers and sisters. Dale is mercilessly bullied and beaten up on his way to and from school. He learns to steal food from his job as a stock boy at the local market to help feed the family. His father, Lloyd Peck, is a cook at a local mental hospital. Lloyd, known as “the old man,” is a chronic drunkard, addicted to cough syrup. Dale’s mother, Ethel, despises Dale and beats him with a hose capped by a metal coupler. Dale’s two oldest brothers, Duke and Jimmy, each have different fathers; Dale is the first son born to both Ethel and Lloyd.

On a cold night in 1956, Lloyd drags Dale out of the bed he shares with his brothers. Lloyd drives Dale out of town in their broken-down truck, farther than Dale has ever been before. Along the way, Lloyd drinks cough syrup and warns Dale away from whores like his mother. Lloyd insists that he will not let Dale, his “own and oldest boy,” get sent to military school. Lloyd leaves Dale at his estranged brother’s farm.



Lloyd’s brother, Wallace, is old, hardworking, and frugal. He and Aunt Bessie take Dale into their home. At first, having a room to himself, and the peace and quiet of the country seem strange to Dale, and he misses his brothers and sisters, but memories of his mother’s bloody beatings make him realize he doesn’t want to go back. Dale adapts quickly to his new life. He respects Uncle Wallace and works hard at his chores so as not to disappoint him. Uncle Wallace introduces Dale to “the ladies” of the herd, and soon Dale can identify many of the cows individually, including Dolly, the “queen.”

As Dale helps Uncle Wallace and his farmhand, Donnie, with backbreaking work around the farm, Uncle Wallace warms to Dale and begins to trust and depend on him. Uncle Wallace tells Dale he has earned a place at the farm and asks Dale not to let him down. Dale, in an unusual display of physical affection, hugs Uncle Wallace.

Dale attends school and makes friends with Kenny and Flip Flack. He has his first sexual encounter with a girl from school, Julia Miller. He goes out for track and letters in it, earning eight medals and taking on extra chores to try to earn money for a letter jacket.



Uncle Wallace tells Dale about his family history. Lloyd inherited the family farm in Cobleskill. Lloyd found their father dead, and that’s when he started drinking. Lloyd’s alcoholism ran the farm into the ground and drove away Nancy, his first wife. Dale learns that Lloyd had a son with Nancy who was also named Dale. Uncle Wallace cautions Dale to put mistakes behind him and look toward the future. He says, “Anybody can make a mistake, but there’s no place for self-pity on this farm.” Dale realizes the farm has “crawled inside him.”

Seventeen months later, Dale’s mother and family unexpectedly arrive at the farm to bring him home. Dale is shocked. His mother, looking “thick and squat as a tree trunk shorn of its canopy by a bolt of lightning,” gives him an ultimatum. If he wants to stay part of the family, he has to pack his things and leave now. Dale wants to stay with Uncle Wallace but misses his brothers and sisters. Uncle Wallace tells him there is no future for him back in Long Island and that Dale is “like the son he never had” and always wanted. Nevertheless, Dale decides to go home. Uncle Wallace says that Dale is breaking his heart, then angrily tells him to leave. Dale piles in the truck with his siblings, his drunken father, and his angry mother.

Back in Long Island, nothing has changed. Dale’s parents are still toxic and dysfunctional. Dale’s mother says she forced Lloyd to give up the farm and only married Lloyd because of Dale. She sends Dale out to search the bars for his father. Dale and his brother Jimmy find Lloyd, drunk, and violently attack him. Later, Dale’s mother drags him out of bed and forces him to watch as policemen rough up Lloyd. Lloyd calls for mercy and urinates on himself. Dale’s mother beats Dale with the hose, and Dale wishes he never left the farm. He drinks a bottle of his father’s cough syrup.



Part 2 of What We Lost takes place in 2001. Dale Peck Sr. now 58, and his son, the author Dale Peck, revisit the farm. There they are served lunch by a girl who is the narrator of this section. Dale Peck Sr. is overjoyed to be back and to talk again with the old farmhand, Donnie. Older Dale is now a plumber and admits that leaving the farm was the “biggest mistake I ever made in my life.” He tried to get Uncle Wallace to take him back, but Uncle Wallace refused. Donnie takes father and son out to visit “the ladies.” Dale Jr. watches the love and joy on his father’s face as he talks to the cows. Later, they meet older Dale’s half-brother, also named Dale Peck. The two embrace.