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Father and Son

A memoir about family, the past and mortality
Book Hero Magic crafted this summary to help describe this book. While it's new and still learning, it may not be perfect - your feedback is welcome! Summary
Father and Son is Jonathan Raban's final memoir, recounting his life-altering stroke at sixty-nine and his reflections on recovery, resilience, and family. The narrative intertwines his struggle with physical limitations and the poignant story of his parents' wartime marriage, conducted through letters during World War II. With raw honesty, Raban explores the essence of human endurance, warmth, and humour amidst trauma.
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Format: Paperback / softback
$3999
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This memoir is well-suited for readers interested in personal stories of resilience, history enthusiasts, and those drawn to honest explorations of family bonds and the human spirit.

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An extraordinary memoir about family, the past and mortality, and the final work from the peerless Jonathan Raban.

An extraordinary memoir about family, the past and mortality, and the final work from the peerless Jonathan Raban.

Book Hero Magic formatted this description to make it easier to read. While it's new and still learning, it may not be perfect - your feedback is welcome! Description

Father and Son is a beautiful, compelling memoir. It presents an exquisite, sometimes lunatic tension between powerful emotions and carnage on one side, and on the other, the conventional codes of what must remain unsaid. This, Raban's final work, is a gorgeous achievement. - Ian McEwan

On 11 June 2011, three days short of his sixty-ninth birthday, Jonathan Raban suffered a stroke which left him unable to use the right side of his body, wheelchair-bound in a rehab facility and endlessly frustrated by his newfound physical limitations. As he resisted the overbearing ministrations of the nurses helping him along the road to recovery, Raban began to reflect not only on the measure of his own life but the extraordinary story of his parents' early marriage, conducted for three years by letter while his father fought in the Second World War.

Jonathan Raban engages profoundly and honestly with the biggest questions at the heart of what it means to be alive, laying bare the human capacity to adapt to trauma, as well as the warmth, strength, and humour that persist despite it. The result is Father and Son, a tremendous story of resilience in the face of loss.

Book Details

INFORMATION

ISBN: 9781529035704

Publisher: Pan Macmillan

Format: Paperback / softback

Date Published: 14 September 2023

Country: United Kingdom

Imprint: Picador

Audience: General / adult

DIMENSIONS

Spine width: 27.0mm

Width: 153.0mm

Height: 234.0mm

Weight: 416g

Pages: 336

About the Author

Jonathan Raban was the author of over a dozen books, both fiction and non-fiction, including Passage to Juneau, Bad Land, Hunting Mister Heartbreak, Coasting, Old Glory, Arabia, Soft City, Waxwings and Surveillance. His awards included the National Book Critics Circle Award, the Royal Society of Literature's Heinemann Award, the Thomas Cook Award, the PEN West Creative Nonfiction Award, the Pacific Northwest Booksellers' Award, and the Governor's Award of the State of Washington. His work appeared in The New Yorker, Granta, Harpers, The New York Review of Books, Outside, Atlantic Monthly, New Republic, The London Review of Books, and other magazines.

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    Jonathan Raban is the only person I listen to in matters of travel and books and writing in general. Reading him, talking to him as I have over fifty years, he has made my work better and me happier. - Paul Theroux For Love and Money is as good a book as there is about the writing life. Delighted that...
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    Eothen, which means 'news from the east', started out as a few notes scribbled on the back of a map, to amuse a friend who wanted some advice for his own youthful 'year off' travels, but it became one of the most influential, witty and idiosyncratic of travel books. It took Kinglake seven years before he had finished crafting this...
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