An audio book. Noah, 79, a retired science prof, and widower for several years, has Joan (ex-wife) as an inner voice. He lives in New York and is about to visit Nice where he was born. Out of the blue he's asked to temporarily look after the 11 y.o. son of his nephew, a boy he's never met. His nephew Victor died of a drug overdose after a troubled life. The boy's mother is in prison. Not wanting to change his holiday plans, Noah takes the boy, Michael, along. The first hour or so of the book justifies that scenario. My concept of pacing is more tuned to the short story. I think the novel could have begun with the journey to the prison, interleaving the back-story.
In Nice (where the coast "curves like the arm of a dancer" twice, I think), Michael is street-wise and foul-mouthed, not impressed with non-USA culture, full of bravado. Noah's trying to work out the meaning of some recently found old photos. Was his mother Margot an informer? Did she have a further child after Noah had been sent to join his father in the States? Noah's grandfather was quite a famous art-photograper. His skills are compared with Michael's on his mobile. Michael's observant, noticing clues.
Noah deduces (with the help of Michael, museum visits, etc) that Margot was a forger for the resistance, helping Jewish children to escape. Victor, he deduces, had become an informer for the police to avoid a prison sentence, but his drug associates had found out.
Noah and Michael get on each other's nerves though gain a grudging respect for each other. At the end Noah's ready to house Michael for a while. He considers moving house.
Some of the plot is telegraphed (I never thought Victor's death was suicide, nor that Margot was an informer). Noah keeps trying to teach Michael things, which would be ok were the book shorter. I don't know why some scenes are there.
Other reviews
- Sarah Crown (Michael – clearer-eyed, less nostalgic – is able to make the leaps that Noah can’t, leading Noah to a deeper understanding of the mother and grandfather he revered. At the same time, the older man is forced to question his assumptions about the nephew he’d loved and then written off, and the slice of society to which Michael himself belongs. Each obliges the other to recognise the limits of his experience – and the possibility that there might be something worth learning, worth having, on the far side.)
- Clémence Michallon
- Goodreads (too much Googling, predictable storylines; overuse of "Dude")
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