Akin

Emma Donoghue's earlier books, Room and The Wonder, are two of my favourite contemporary novels and I was hoping to be as enraptured by Akin as I was by the others. I wasn't. I'll tell you a bit about the book and why it didn't live up to my expectations. Noah is a childless widower on the cusp of his eightieth birthday. He has a trip planned to Nice, which he had left in the midst of the Second World War as a 7-year-old child. He was sent to live with his father who was in the United States while his mother remained with her father, a famous photographer in failing health. Just a couple of days before Noah was scheduled to make his trip to Nice he received a call from a social worker informing him that he is next of kin to his 11-year-old great nephew, son of his deceased nephew. The child's mother is in prison. Both his paternal and maternal grandparents are also deceased. The social worker informs him that if he does not take the boy, Michael, until she is able to track down another relative he will be placed in the care of the state. Noah agrees, a passport is obtained for the boy and the pair set off for Nice where they will spend a week. Seriously? I was a social worker for 15 years a very long time ago. Michael and Noah have never met, the child has behavioural issues and Noah is a very old man. Even four decades ago I would not have approved such a placement, temporary or not, without doing a basic home study and a gradual integration. It turns out that both parties are a pain in the ass. Michael is grindingly oppositional and Noah is an annoying nitpicker. Both are 100% intractable and their interaction is almost unbearable. There is no indication that either of them wish to make this situation work, so why are they here together in France? These are my two criticisms: the child would not have been placed with an 80-year-old unknown relative and, realistically, one or the other would have shown a little give-and-take.

Noah has a bundle of photographs that his mother took during the war. His intention is to uncover what his mother did during her time in France after he left and before she joined him and his father in America. That story is interesting and kept me engaged during the second half of the novel, although one would think that a science professor would not be inclined to jump to so many unsupported conclusions. 

Akin is highly entertaining but it does not clear the high bar set by other Donoghue novels. I recommend it as a good light read.