Lion

Actor Walger debuts with a piercing autobiographical novel about a woman’s relationship with her charismatic but neglectful father. A hedonistic and adventurous Argentinian, he meets the unnamed narrator’s English mother in Madrid after fleeing a failed business deal in Congo. After they marry, he flies to Vietnam and the marriage fails. The mother remains the narrator’s rock throughout the ensuing years as she meets her father in Lima, Buenos Aires, and Los Angeles, where she works as an actor and raises two children, acutely aware of how much more stable their lives are than her own childhood. The narrator recounts her father’s many marriages, his scandals (he goes to prison for drugs) and penury (at one point, he empties her childhood bank account), cocaine abuse, and dangerous hobbies such as polo, race car driving, and sky diving. Throughout, the dual themes of shame and overwhelming love are beautifully expressed, and the portrait of the father’s tragic arc is at once sweeping and precise: “My father is Argentina personified. A nation shimmering with promise brought to its knees with heartbreaking predictability by its own corruptibility and hubris.” It’s a revelation. Agent: Mia Vitale, Park & Fine Literary. (Feb.)