Thoroughly engaging and enjoyable account of a “normal” family over the course of 10 days whilst the grandfather comes from abroad for his twice-yearly visit. “Normal” maybe – but most certainly not without multiple issues as we soon learn when the family dynamics are put under the microscope. Their trials and tribulations are sharply dissected - but always with insight and compassion. The novel is a wonderful evocation of the minutiae of daily life, of the strains and stresses of being a parent, of relationships that endlessly change and shift, of the challenges of …well, just being a family. They are all flawed characters, the family members we meet here, but flawed in such a psychologically acute way that we feel for them throughout. Love, guilt, resentment, loss – we see everything through each character’s perspective in turn. Each has his or her say. No stereotypes, no tropes, no sentimentality. Just family life in all its many aspects. A brilliant contemporary family saga.

𝑰𝒕 𝒘𝒂𝒔𝒏’𝒕 𝒂 𝒇𝒓𝒆𝒆 𝒄𝒉𝒐𝒊𝒄𝒆. 𝑳𝒐𝒗𝒆 𝒊𝒔 𝒕𝒉𝒆 𝒐𝒑𝒑𝒐𝒔𝒊𝒕𝒆 𝒐𝒇 𝒇𝒓𝒆𝒆 𝒄𝒉𝒐𝒊𝒄𝒆.

It took me a moment to get into the flow as there are no names, just identifiers such as this, “a grandfather who is a father”, “a son who is a father” and “a sister who is a daughter but no longer a mother” and that one gutted me. This novel destroyed me with the every character’s grief and disappointments. Within this family, there are so many crossed wires of miscommunication that you expect them to implode. I seem to be on a kick of reading books about family and how they wreak havoc on self-worth from childhood on. How it all spills into every crevice of one’s life and future relationships. For the son, the father clause is an arrangement between he and the old man, one he is done with. He wants to renege on it- the time has come to put his foot down. Right now he is on paternity leave, and having a hell of a time trying to succeed at having an ordinary day with the same ease other parents seem to manage. To his own father, he is a failure. His father’s visit is making him a mess.

The old man knows what it takes to make it in the world. The father who is a grandfather is a wise man, he knows everything, and he can’t wrap his mind around the rest of the world and all the sensitivity. He is blunt, unafraid of words that come off as inflammatory or racist, people are too serious! He makes his son nervous in modeling how to be a real man, wishes his son would ease up for his children’s sake, at least. He’s one to talk, constantly irritated, a no show through much of the times the son and daughter needed him. Is he to be blamed for expecting his children to care for him, honor him? Aren’t grown children meant to do just this? Son and father are at an impasse, they cannot communicate, they do not understand each other. The old world versus the new world, one with no place for the masculinity the father who is a grandfather was nourished on. Suddenly he is the problem for everything!

A sister who is a mother is making dinner for the father and brother, naturally it’s minus the other part of the family (their mother) as her parents are no longer married and her own son is rejecting her and then there is her boyfriend (is he her boyfriend?) and no one is going to say what they really need to say to the father who has failed them both! Not hard to recognize a family that exists between the spaces of things unsaid. Ignore the festering wounds, pretend all is jolly good! Look at us here, being normal. How do a brother and a sister grow up with the same parents and turn out so excruciatingly different?

Another daughter who is no longer… what happened to her?

A boyfriend who is together with the daughter meets her father and it’s painful.

The children are adorable, genuine beings unlike children in other novels who are mentioned but not really present. These children are alive and require care, attention, and laughter.

The girlfriend who is mother to the son’s children is worried. He is slipping, failing (maybe the father who is a grandfather is right about him after-all). He is a deer caught in the headlights of family life. But the grandfather is a solid presence, so much will happen in this story. The father who is a grandfather just might be presented with the chance to be there!

As an aside, the father who is a grandfather personifies so may old men who suddenly feel like their role is one of enemy, their worlds really have turned on them. Is it strange I really warmed up to him, recognize him perfectly?

I felt for every character. The stitches that hold them together are bursting. What is held back- the emotions, words, history like a loaded gun, is a low hum that gets louder and louder. They hurt each other deeply, as those who know us best often do. I know my review is strange but this book was an experience. The novel managed to burrow inside of me, to make me feel close to the characters without naming them and that requires incredible skill. I need to read more of Swedish author Jonas Hassen Khermiri’s work, because he understands human nature at our very core. It’s possible to love people despite their errant ways, even cantankerous father’s, exhausted mothers, failing sons, and terrified daughters. The next generation will do the same dance…

Publication Date: August 25, 2020

Farrar, Straus and Giroux

This looks like a stunning book. I very much looking forward to this title. The opening scene at border patrol seems very aligned with our times.

Despite winning multiple awards, Swedish author Jonas Hassen Khemiri is largely unknown to English speaking readers. A shame. Only one other of his books is available via Kindle, and several others only in high priced print editions. His mastery of language is apparent, given his reputation as a playwright. And if this book is any indication, he should have a wider audience.

The course of Family Clause, spooling out over a week's visit from "a father who is a grandfather," follows a family's history. No names (as in Milkman, but here, more accessible). The son who is a father is on paternity leave. The sister who is a daughter is pregnant with the wrong man. And so it goes. I have never seen family life so well delineated, so precise. Life with the one year old, the four year old, minutes described so clearly and visibly. Without sentimentality but with affection and deep underlying love. Everyone is given a point of view, even one who has departed. We get to know this family from the inside out in a way seldom experienced via a novel. The closest are the family sagas by Karl Ove Knausgaard. Finally, Kudos to Alice Menzies for the fine translation.

This was an emotional read about a family and their struggles. As you get to know the characters throughout the book you will not forget these characters. They will stay with you. You'll laugh and cry while reading this story. I love books that make you feel like the characters are real and you see their struggles and feel for them. This book was beautifully written and well done. Thank you to the publisher and net galley for allowing me to read and review this novel.