Akin by Emma Donoghue

 

Noah Selvaggio is about to turn eighty.  He is a retired chemistry professor and widower and as he ages his thoughts return to his childhood.  Noah was born in France.  As World War II approached, his father immigrated to the United States while he and his mother stayed behind to attend to his grandfather, a renowned photographer.  When Noah was around four, his mother sent him to join his father, making the long sea voyage by himself.  She stayed in Nice throughout the war, rejoining Noah and his father after the war and having Noah's little sister.

Now Noah is about to return to Nice for the first time and he is quite excited about it.  But right before he is to leave, he is contacted by New York social services.  He has a great nephew he has never met who is eleven and named Michael.  Michael has no one to stay with.  His father died of a drug overdose and his mother is in prison.  He had been staying with his grandmother but she has just died also.  Noah is the only relative who can be located.  Reluctantly, Noah agrees to take Michael with him while social services continues to look for a younger relative who will give Michael a home.

So the two take off, eighty and eleven.  There is a huge gap in knowledge between the two.  Noah knows what an adult knows and is surprised how little of his knowledge Michael has studied.  Michael is appalled at how technology illiterate Noah is and how little he knows of current culture and phrases.  Somehow the two find enough of a common ground to get by.  Once in Nice, Noah revisits scenes from his childhood and he believes that he has discovered a shameful secret about his mother.  Michael helps him with his research into his mother's life and provides a different viewpoint from Noah's.  The two start to gel together but of course this relationship is only temporary.

Emma Donoghue has written a heartwarming novel with memorable characters.  Michael has had about as much bad luck thrown at him as a child can and remains a charming individual overlaid with teenage angst.  Noah is a fairly fussy elderly man whose viewpoint may be changed being around this young boy.  The story of their discoveries both about history and their own natures will charm the reader.  This book is recommended for readers of family relationships and literary fiction.