That quest takes Noah, Michael in tow, to some of the darker parts of the south of France’s history under Nazi occupation. Michael enters his life days before this trip and – because what else do you do with a strange child you’ve just met? – is dragged along with Noah on this pilgrimage. Noah does know they’re taken in Nice, and, given he’s got nothing else to fill his days, it’s a good enough excuse to finally go back to the French city he fled as a child during the war. They appear hastily taken, shots of random places, the backs of unrecognizable people, children’s feet, what looks like an identity photo for a little boy Noah knows is not himself. They’re not by Pere Sonne, his famous photographer grandfather. For Noah, it’s a series of photographs found among his mother’s effects. For Michael, it’s his dad’s apparent death of an overdose, just days after he’d given his son a maroon chip, marking 90 days of sobriety. More than anything, however, Michael and Noah are alike in that both of them have an unresolved mystery surrounding one of their parents. Cue his reluctant commitment to shelter his grand nephew while a social worker tries to get in touch with a transient aunt.) Yes, he’s 79, and no, he’s never met Michael but he’s the only relative standing between this 11-year-old and a group home. They are also both effectively alone in the world: Noah a solitary widower since his wife’s death a decade ago, Michael one piece of paperwork away from being a ward of the state after his maternal grandmother’s death while his mother is serving time for narcotics charges. They are, for starters, actually kin: Michael is Noah’s grand nephew, the child of his recently deceased, historically troubled nephew. As the title might suggest, however, they are far more, uh, akin than they are different. Log In Create Free AccountĪt first blush, Emma Donoghue’s Akin is a novel about an odd couple, an old man and a young boy thrown together by circumstances neither of them would have chosen.
0 kommentar(er)
