Son

by Neil Sonnekus

“Son made me laugh, it made me cry, it made me think. What more do you want from a novel?” Bridget Hilton-Barber, author of Student Prisoner Comrade Spy

Len and his father, Son, might as well live on different planets. If the latter is a puritanical curmudgeon in his late 80s, then Len, a recent divorcee in his early 40s, is interested in one thing and one thing only: sex. They couldn’t be more different — or similar. They are both storytellers. So when Len tries to get behind his father’s good-time stories of World War Two, he discovers that its horrors are right here on his doorstep — just like those of the new South Africa.

“A brilliant achievement in post-apartheid narrative, Son brims with brio, verve and swagger as Sonnekus masterfully captures the so-called Noughties. Uproariously funny and unremittingly frank, Son exposes politics as a tragic farce, traverses the dark arts of sexual conquest and desire, and unearths brutal anxieties around crime, alienation and ageing.” — Jonathan Amid