Looking for a book about loving someone who hurt the people you love

TL;DR:
My grandfather was a loving, present figure to me but a largely absent and hurtful father to my mom and uncle. Now that he’s gone, I’m grieving him but also feel guilty for having received a better version of someone who hurt the people I love. Looking for books about loving and grieving morally complicated people, uneven family love, and emotional ambiguity.

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Hi everyone,

I’m looking for a book recommendation, and I hope I can explain this clearly.

My grandfather passed away recently. He had separated from my grandmother when my mother and uncle were very young. He moved away, started a new family, and was largely absent — emotionally and financially — during their childhood. From what I know, it was a painful and difficult time for them, especially for my uncle.

But with me, he was different.

He lived in another region, yet he visited me regularly for years. He called, he showed interest, he brought gifts, he made me feel wanted. Shortly before he died, he told me I was his favorite grandchild. I never doubted that he loved me.

Now that he’s gone, I’m grieving — genuinely. I miss him. But at the same time, I feel a deep and confusing sense of guilt.

I was loved by a man who failed the people I love the most.

My mother and uncle didn’t get the father I got as a grandfather. My sister and cousins didn’t even get the grandfather I had. I feel like I received a “better version” of him — a later, maybe more mature version — and that feels unfair. Almost morally wrong.

I don’t want to idealize him and ignore the harm he caused.
I don’t want to minimize my family’s pain.
But I also don’t want to deny my own experience just to make the emotional math feel fair.

I’m looking for a book that explores themes like:

• Loving someone who wasn’t a good parent to others
• Grieving someone complex or morally inconsistent
• Feeling guilty for having received more love than others
• Family asymmetry — when affection isn’t distributed equally
• Intergenerational wounds
• The tension between loyalty to your own experience and loyalty to your family

Fiction, memoir, essays, psychology — anything is welcome. I’m especially drawn to introspective, emotionally honest writing (I’ve considered Knausgård, for example).

I’m not looking for something that simplifies the situation into forgiveness or condemnation. I’m looking for something that can sit with ambiguity.

Thank you.