The Father’s Tale

O’Brien (A Cry of Stone) takes his readers on an improbable ride, which is his intent. Canadian Alex Graham, a devout Catholic who is still grieving the death of his wife years before, has learned that the younger of his two grown sons, studying at Oxford, has gone missing. From that moment on, Graham travels unrelentingly over several continents in search of his prodigal. It’s a linear narrative of a circuitous journey, portions of which could easily have been shorn without damaging the story. Still, the familial urgency keeps the reader engaged. The travel serves also as a metaphor for Graham’s interior life, which is filled with family themes, memories of risks taken, regrets revisited, and losses overcome. Graham’s urgent search and parental grief in the face of a lost child reflects the story’s metanarrative, that is, love of a kind that takes a father (or Heavenly Father) to the ends of the earth to find his child. It is a long read, perhaps best saved for several winter days. (Nov.)