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

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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.

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Pierre had a dream which was to be a published  author. He had a manuscript ready.

How Yanis handled the situation is  part of the rest of this story.

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.