Reviewer Bani Sodermark. Bani has a Ph.D in mathematical physics and has been a teacher of physics and mathematics at the university level in both India and Sweden. For the last decade, her interests have been spirituality, healthy living and self-development. She has written a number of reviews on Amazon. Bani is a mother to two children.
Author: Martin Dumont
A Father's Pain
Author: Martin Dumont
ASIN: B078WZJD7N
This is a beautifully written book.
It is the story of a taxi driver Yanis and his twenty year old son Pierre. Pierre’s mother and Yanis’ wife, Lucille has died in a car accident, at a time when she was alone in the car. Yanis had wondered if she had killed herself. For Yanis, Lucille was the only woman for him
.
In this book, Yanis
weaves an emotional narrative of the memorable moments in
his life, so far, both before and after Lucille, Pierre’s
’birth was one such “Pierre’s birth had made her so happy.It
was such a beautiful success. Concrete proof that what we had could
work”
.Lucille died very early, when Pierre was around two years old.
“When she was sinking into depression, I played the clown. Sometimes, she’d smile.
”On those days when all went well, there was such joy-it’s impossible to explain..My Lucille, in the underworld, I can see her now,easy meat. She dove in head first and by that time I’d realized it was too late.”
Yanis’ supported his son
by working night shifts when Pierre was asleep,so that they
could be together when Pierre was awake.
Among Yanis’ skills was the art of diving. He was very good at it,having retrieved a gold ring from the ocean floor for an acquaintance..So this suggests that Pierre would also be good at the sport, having had ample exposure to the same.
.One fine summer weekend, Yanisi and Pierre go on a diving expedition. All goes well at the onset, but at the end of the day, when they were taking a final dip, Pierre asked his father, if they could call it a day as he was not well.This was unusual as Pierre could stay underwater for a longer time than Yanis himself.
Yanis took his son to a
doctor at once. What the doctor said was very disturbing. .Pierre
*had had to be operated on at once.
The rest of the book is
Yanis ’story of how events played out themselves.
It is difficult to believe that this novel is the author’s debut. The sensitivity shown in the descriptions of difficult situations is amazing. The atmosphere created in the book is sombre as befits the situation book is, nevertheless, quite a light and fast read..
Highly recommended.