My Father, His Son

January 1, 1991
In this engaging sequel to My Life as a Dog (the second book in a proposed trilogy), Ingemar Johansson travels from Stockholm to Algiers in 1976 to visit his wife, Louise, from whom he has recently separated. Louise tells Ingemar he must grow up and find himself. Ingemar decides to stay in Algiers and look. Through his dreams and reminiscences--which sometimes reconstruct the same stories differently--Ingemar tells colorful tales from his years at sea, recalling adventures that take the reader from Africa to Australia. In one, he and his sailor father, serving on sister ships, are saved from the assault of a crazy Dane by a song and a Tuborg beer; their emotional estrangement persists, however. Ingemar lives in a world of his own wild anecdotes, shielding himself from the pain of his mother's death and his father's abandonment. Ultimately, he returns home, vowing to break out of the past and be a real father to his own son. Ingemar's humor, irony and innocence, combined with what he calls his ``magnetic field of foolishness'' make Jonsson's novel at once engrossing, outrageous and poetic.