|
Dysfunctional families have existed as long as families have existed --- period. It is
no wonder that OUR FATHERS, the first novel from Andrew O'Hagan, is the 2001 Booker Prize
winner, the highest order of literary prize bestowed on a writer from the British Isles. A
man named Jamie returns to Scotland from his home in England because his grandfather, the
man with whom he lived throughout most of his adolescence, is lying on his death bed.
Jamie decides that, having once run out on the old man after he had taken care of him for
years, it is time to say good-bye gracefully and maturely, and he attempts to do what he
can to let the old man know what he has meant to him. OUR FATHERS is a poetic and at times
majestic look at one man's life as well as the social and political history of
contemporary Scotland.
The episodic nature of the opening chapters, in which Jamie recounts the difficulties and
traumas of his young life with his real parents, problems which include alcoholism and
domestic violence, could have been vaulted into EAST ENDERS territory, but instead O'Hagan
offers a consistent and purified voice that explains all aspects of the story in a quiet
and well-considered manner. "I sat by myself on the train leaning Berwick; six years
old in long trousers. Jamie the boy with watery eyes. That was me." Obviously, the
boy has suffered, but he never takes it out on us --- instead, he weaves his story with
the weathered and mature voice of a man who has moved past his past and realizes that
there is still more redeeming and learning to do as he continues to get older.
Relationships are difficult, and O'Hagan doesn't pussyfoot around the particulars of
Jamie's attempts to latch on to love throughout his life. Throughout the period of his
visit to his grandparents, as his grandfather falls farther and farther away from the
precipice of life, Jamie finds himself going over and over, in confrontation and in
consideration, the way he has learned to deal with others and what he can do to better
those learned abilities.
OUR FATHERS is a moving but not tortured testament to the way in which people can
change with age, mellowing and accepting as well as questioning even more than ever
before. There is a dignity in Jamie's search for the truth that will touch every reader's
heart.
--- Reviewed by Jana Siciliano
© Copyright 1996-2009, Bookreporter.com. All rights reserved.
|
