Donoghue skilfully, if
sometimes a little slowly, weaves a gentle story. (Review by Margaret von
Klemperer, courtesy of The Witness)
Emma Donoghue’s bestselling Room was a novel filled with almost unbearable tension, but here,
in Akin, the pace is slower and the
aim is much more nuanced.
Noah, a childless and widowed academic, approaching his 80th
birthday, is suddenly contacted by Social Services in New York where he lives,
to be told he is the only family member for his 11 year-old great nephew, and
that, unless he takes him in on at least a temporary basis, the child will have
to be put into care.
Michael’s father has been found dead from an overdose and
his mother is in jail for possession of drugs while the grandmother who was
caring for him has died. Noah is about to head off to Nice, the town where he
was born, for a nostalgic holiday. Not something he envisaged sharing with the
damaged, recalcitrant 11 year-old Michael who he has in fact never met.
Noah’s trip is partly nostalgic, but partly an exploration
of the past. As a child in the Second World War, he was evacuated from Nice to
join his father in New York while his mother stayed behind in France to look
after her father, a celebrated photographer. She eventually joined the family
in America, but never spoke about her wartime experiences, and all Noah has is
a pile of amateurish and oddly-composed photographs. Noah is struggling to
piece her story together: was she a Nazi collaborator; did she have an
illegitimate child? Was she just the kind mother he remembers, or a heroine of
the Resistance?
Meanwhile Michael, unhappy and difficult, is also searching
for something stable he can hang on to, but can’t see it in his great uncle.
Beyond a shared genetic inheritance, they seem to have nothing in common and
have embarked on what is beginning to look like the holiday from hell.
Donoghue skilfully, if sometimes a little slowly, weaves a
gentle story. There will be no great denouement, though some secrets are
unravelled for both Noah and Michael. Those expecting the tension of Room may be somewhat disappointed, but
this is a tender and perceptive tale, and while both central characters have
their flaws and some of what they discover, or think they do, may have been
worked out by the reader in advance, you find yourself rooting for both Noah
and Michael. Margaret von Klemperer
Emma Donoghue’s Akin
is published by Picador.
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