Fathers and Fugitives
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- £9.99
Publisher Description
A compelling novel about fatherhood and family, loyalty and betrayal, inheritance and belonging.
"Magnificent."—The Sunday Times
Daniel is a queer journalist living in London. His relationships appear to be sexually fulfilling but sentimentally meagre. He has no relationships outside of sexual ones, and can seem at once callow and, at times, cold to the point of cruel with his lovers. Emotionally distant from his elderly father, Daniel returns to South Africa to care for him during his final months. Following his father's death, Daniel learns of an unusual clause in the old man's will: he will only inherit his half of his father's estate once he has spent time with Theon, a cousin whom he hasn't seen since they were boys, who lives on the old family farm in the Free State. Once there, Daniel discovers that the young son of the woman Theon lives with is seriously ill. With the conditions bearing on Daniel's inheritance shifting in real time, Theon and Daniel travel to Japan for an experimental cure and a voyage that will change their lives forever.
S J Naudé's masterful novel is many things at once: a literary page page-turner full of vivid, unexpected characters and surprising twists; a loving and at times shockingly raw portrayal of its protagonist's complex psyche; and a devastatingly subtle look into South Africa's fraught recent history.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
The captivating latest from Naude (Mad Honey) tracks a passive South African writer through a series of misadventures and a reckoning with filial duty. The reader meets Daniel, who is gay, at the Tate Modern, where he picks up two crude Serbian men and slips into a strange relationship with them, letting them live at his London apartment where they engage in emotionless sex and Daniel feels a sense of foreboding. Creatively stalled, Daniel accepts the Serbs' invitation to travel with them to Belgrade, where they both turn up dead. Daniel then returns to South Africa to attend to his dying father and eventually, under the terms of his father's will, is obligated to spend a month with his mother's nephew, Theon, in the rural Free State province. The cousins only met once, decades ago, but Daniel left a lasting impression on Theon, a country bumpkin enamored by his urbane relative. In later sections, the cousins bond during a trip to Japan, then take in a pair of drifters, and the plot comes full circle with disastrous results. Naude is an extraordinary writer, going deep into the psyches of his characters while maintaining a startling aura of mystery. This deserves a wide readership.
