A wonderful epic story. – Marie Huret, Madame Figaro

[In this novel] we find the joy of reading great novels that take their inspiration from everyday life and progressively shake up a host of stereotypes and taboos, without ever forcing anything, only doing so through the experience of sensitivity and the power of writing. – Librairie Passerelles

A very honest story about the upheavals related to fatherhood. Read this book before embarking on the great family adventure! – Librairie Durance

Fatherhood: An Epic

“Fatherhood is the great affair of my adult life. It took up a huge share of my time. My first child was born when I was 25; my fifth when I was 42. Four boys; one girl. With two different mothers.

I waited for the series of births to end before describing the experience. I had been wanting to do so for a long time. While novelists and intellectuals often write about their fathers, they tend to be quite discreet about their own fatherhood. In a way, I understand. Writing about your children means running the risk of showing bias. And besides, where is the suspense in baby food?

Yet the further I got in my writing, the more it felt like an epic. In swashbucklers, there are duels, luminous and violent moments where your life is on the line – just like giving birth. There are traps and hardships that test your character – and taking care of children means coping with them continually. You have to protect them from the dangers around them, while showing them the way forward.

But what really makes filiation an epic experience is that it forces us to confront our own deaths. Our children are what we leave behind on Earth after we’re gone. In the natural order of things, they should gather around our coffins. There’s nothing sad about it. As we grow older, we transfer our love of life onto them.” A. L.