Beckett's Children

Where literary criticism meets memoir, Beckett’s Children explores how absence, lineage, and loss echo across art and life.

Beckett’s Children is a lyrical blend of personal memoir, father-son dialogue, and literary investigation that probes the works of Irish writer Samuel Beckett and American poet Susan Howe in search of traces of their long-rumored status as father and daughter. Although Howe has denied the rumor, the possibility that it might be true leads Coffey to a highly original appreciation of her work and a fascinating focus on the dozens of unattended children who wander through Beckett’s oeuvre.

The saga of Coffey’s adult son, at various moments on the run in the Indiana woods, is here tragically updated in a visceral and moving Afterword, shining a harsh light on life without parental connection in a cold America. As an adoptee himself, Coffey looks to literature for traces of his own origin story and lineage, as he mourns the loss of his son.

Provocative and beautifully expressed, Beckett’s Children suggests a new approach to the textual worlds of two highly respected artists, providing a revelatory perspective on both American poetics and the vibrant world of Beckett studies.