Autopsy of a Father

May 1, 2017
When Ania returns to Les Epinettes for her estranged father's funeral, she discovers that a political brouhaha has erupted in the latest novel by Swiss writer Kramer (The Child, 2012, etc.).Unbeknownst to her, her dad, Gabriel, a prominent left-wing radio journalist, had recently been fired from his job. The termination, Ania learns, followed an on-air diatribe in which the 57-year-old had voiced support for two white Frenchmen who had brutally--and for no apparent reason--murdered an African immigrant. Ania had heard nothing about the well-publicized incident before returning to her childhood village. In fact, the apolitical Ania has been living in a near bubble since leaving home decades earlier. Her day-to-day routines have been simple: she goes to work and cares for her young son, Theo. As a divorced single mom, Ania is content to keep her nose to the grindstone. Her lack of civic engagement, however, ends when news of Gabriel's suicide reaches her. Not only does she have to process this abrupt loss, she also has to grapple with her father's festering racism. In addition, she has to interact with her father's wife, Clara, an efficient, cosmopolitan professional who is about her own age. The proximity grates, especially since Ania and Gabriel had never been close or confided in one another. As the back story unfolds, the novel delves into anti-immigrant sentiment and the resentments that have erupted between newcomers and longtime European residents. It's fraught, and the violence lurking beneath the surface is palpable. At the same time, the father-daughter tensions are revealed in fits and starts and never fully gel. We learn, for example, that Ania's mom died in an accident, but whether Gabriel had a hand in this remains unclear. A timely if sketchily drawn look at the rise of bigotry and the ways racial and ethnic tensions play out in one French community and family.

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October 23, 2017
Kramer’s restrained, powerful novel is about the complicated pull of family ties. Ania, a woman living on her own with her young son, Theo, learns that her father, Gabriel, a radio commentator and intellectual, has died. Estranged from him since the death of her mother, she visits his country estate to settle his affairs and learn more about the father she never knew. His womanizing behaviors and condescending attitude toward Ania created a rift between them, as did her feeling that she could never match him intellectually. Ania discovers that Gabriel had made a number of increasingly controversial pronouncements, the most recent, and most disturbing, of which was a defense of two local young men who attacked and killed an immigrant vagrant. The novel captures the complexity of relationships with great subtlety, not only Ania’s with her father, but also with Theo’s father, Novak, an Eastern European immigrant who has just reentered Ania’s life, as well as with Gabriel’s widow, Clara, who is equally helpful and difficult. While the ending is overly dramatic, for the most part the novel is a series of quiet scenes, full of introspection, memories, and contradictory emotions. Bononno has translated the original French into striking, flowing prose.

June 1, 2017
Kramer, a Swiss-born author living in Paris, tells the deceptively simple, emotionally incisive story of Gabriel, a widower, and his daughter, Ania, from whom he has been estranged. Ania returns to her childhood home with her son for her first visit in four years, and a day later Gabriel is found dead, a suicide. Kramer gradually peels back the layers of what occurred during those intervening years before their reunion: Ania's unhappy marriage and divorce, and Gabriel's relationship with a younger woman, barely known to Ania. But the most important piece of the puzzle of her father's life that Ania gradually uncovers is his transformation from left-wing journalist at a national radio station to strident racist who publicly defends the actions of two young men who beat and drown an African immigrant, with apparently no remorse. Based on a true scandal involving a French author and intellectual, Kramer's haunting story of this disintegrating family is a timely reflection on the anti-immigrant feelings expressed in France and many other countries, including the U.S.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2017, American Library Association.)