Father and Son
Read by
James Langton
Release:
09/19/2023
Runtime:
12h 32m
Unabridged
Quantity:
Father and Son is a deeply moving career capstone... his final book, [it] recounts his struggle in that rehab, juxtaposed with his father’s experience as a young British officer in World War II, during his parents’ first years of marriage. It seems an odd pairing at first... until, bit by bit, something remarkable and beautiful and ever so subtle grows, and Father and Son becomes Raban's finest and most moving book... It is poignant and crushing. The father arriving home from war, the son arriving home from a stroke...A story about life, its arc from beginning to end... A life ending, a life beginning. Father and son. I wept.
Carl Hoffman, The Washington Post
A NEW YORKER BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR • A poignant memoir of love, trauma, and recovery after a life-changing stroke, twinned to a powerful account of his father's experience in World War II, by a winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award.
“A beautiful, compelling memoir...Raban’s final work is a gorgeous achievement.” —Ian McEwan, New York Times best-selling author of Lessons
In June 2011, just days before his sixty-ninth birthday, Jonathan Raban was sitting down to dinner with his daughter when he found he couldn’t move his knife to his plate. Later that night, at the hospital, doctors confirmed what all had suspected: that he had suffered a massive hemorrhagic stroke, paralyzing the right side of his body. Once he became stable, Raban embarked on an extended stay at a rehabilitation center, where he became acquainted with, and struggled to accept, the limitations of his new body—learning again how to walk and climb stairs, attempting to bathe and dress himself, and rethinking how to write and even read.
Woven into these pages is an account of a second battle, one that his own father faced in the trenches during World War II. With intimate letters that his parents exchanged at the time, Raban places the budding love of two young people within the tumultuous landscape of the war’s various fronts, from the munition-strewn beaches of Dunkirk to blood-soaked streets of Anzio. Moving between narratives, his and theirs, Raban artfully explores the human capacity to adapt to trauma, as well as the warmth, strength, and humor that persist despite it. The result is Father and Son, a powerful story of mourning, but also one of resilience.
“A beautiful, compelling memoir...Raban’s final work is a gorgeous achievement.” —Ian McEwan, New York Times best-selling author of Lessons
In June 2011, just days before his sixty-ninth birthday, Jonathan Raban was sitting down to dinner with his daughter when he found he couldn’t move his knife to his plate. Later that night, at the hospital, doctors confirmed what all had suspected: that he had suffered a massive hemorrhagic stroke, paralyzing the right side of his body. Once he became stable, Raban embarked on an extended stay at a rehabilitation center, where he became acquainted with, and struggled to accept, the limitations of his new body—learning again how to walk and climb stairs, attempting to bathe and dress himself, and rethinking how to write and even read.
Woven into these pages is an account of a second battle, one that his own father faced in the trenches during World War II. With intimate letters that his parents exchanged at the time, Raban places the budding love of two young people within the tumultuous landscape of the war’s various fronts, from the munition-strewn beaches of Dunkirk to blood-soaked streets of Anzio. Moving between narratives, his and theirs, Raban artfully explores the human capacity to adapt to trauma, as well as the warmth, strength, and humor that persist despite it. The result is Father and Son, a powerful story of mourning, but also one of resilience.
Release:
2023-09-19
Runtime:
12h 32m
Format:
audio
Weight:
0.0 lb
Language:
English
ISBN:
9780593863275
Publisher:
Penguin Random House
Praise