The Eternal Son

At first the father can barely say it, telling friends only that the baby has 'a small problem'. Everything feels foreign, and he realises the question is not how to fix his son but what room the boy will take up in his marriage and his life for good. Rounds of specialists in an era of ignorance and superstition, strain with his wife, then Felipe's first steps and first school days slowly win the child his place, and the father lets go of seeing him as a curse. Along the way he looks back over his own drifting youth: a commune, illegal work in Germany, unpublished manuscripts, a safe university job.

AI-generated summary

About the book

Form

Novel

Length

224 pages in the original

Genres

Family, Autofiction (assigned by AI)

Set in

Brazil, 1980s

First published

2007 by Record

Author's age

55 when first published

ISBN

9788501077882 (original)

9781921372988 (Scribe, Australia)