Dark, uncompromising, and poetic.
Feature image credit: Text Publishing
A father, a mother, and a young son, arrive at Les Roches, a dilapidated, half-finished cabin in the woods. The father vanished years before, when the son was so young that he now barely remembers him. He has reappeared and is determined to pull his family back together, and return to this place where he lived with his own, troubled father. As the days progress, he descends into a type of madness which threatens the entire family.
French author Jean-Baptiste Del Amo found fame in the English-speaking world with his last translated novel Animalia. First published in 2021, The Son of Man has won the Prix du Roman Fnac and been longlisted for the Prix Femina.
Del Amo has crafted a work imbued less with a sense of dread, and more with a sense of inevitability. There is an undercurrent of psychological determinism in the fate of the father, his father before him, and now his son. The narrative moves fundamentally in a chronological way, yet cuts back to the past: the father’s own childhood; the early years of the father’s relationship with the mother; and the days when the father returned and tried to develop a connection with his son. The snatches of time sometimes blur together, but never become confusing.
The Son of Man is a harsh, uncompromising, yet strangely poetic piece of work — a style the French seem to embrace in their literature. Horrific scenes are delivered with a directness that isn’t clinical, yet manages to give us enough distance as readers that we can bear witness without flinching. It is both an excoriation of toxic masculinity, and plea for understanding. Award-winning translator Frank Wynne has crafted an English-language version of the text which retains the French rhythm and sensibility.
This is a powerful, moving, and thought-provoking novel, which despite its darkness, is highly readable.
Reviewed by Tracey Korsten
The views expressed in this review belong to the author and not Glam Adelaide, its affiliates, or employees.
Distributed by: Text Publishing
Released: June 2024
RRP: $34.99
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