Son Without A Father is a stirring and haunting story about a grieving son, a family that sticks together, deceptive memories, and a journey to a foreign country – to his mother and his dead father.
It’s early morning when his mother calls to tell him that his father has died. The narrator doesn’t know what to do. He’s alone in his grief. Who can help him, who can comfort him? He realizes that he must go to Turkey at once. He needs to see his mother, to support her – and to stand at his father’s grave to say goodbye.
The narrator, a writer, is afraid of flying. So he asks two friends to take him in their camper van. Together, they plan their journey: via Linz, Szeged, and Edirne to Edremit and back. Over five thousand kilometers. It’s the beginning of an adventure-filled, feverish road trip across Europe, marked by shimmering memories of his father and his many lives: as a husband, a laborer, a storyteller, and a septuagenarian whose dyed sideburns could stir up chaos across an entire holiday resort.
In his new novel, Feridun Zaimoglu explores how we remember those who are closest to us yet sometimes seem strangely alien to us, those who love and shape us, whom we care for and, despite everything, must eventually let go of.
