The Family Clause

A tender, bruising novel of a family in crisis as a proud patriarch encounters the harsh realities he has inflicted on his children.

“The son did as he was told. All his bloody life, he has done as he has been told. Time to change that, he thinks, grabbing a pen. He doesn’t write that this will be the last time his father stays here. He doesn’t write that he wants to break the father clause. Instead, he writes: Welcome, Dad. Hope you had a good flight.”

A grandfather who lives abroad returns home to visit his adult children. The son is a failure. The daughter is having a baby with the wrong man. Only the grandfather is perfect - at least, according to himself.

But over the course of 10 intense days, relationships unfold and painful memories resurface. The grandfather is confronted by his past. The daughter is faced with an impossible choice. The son tries to write himself free. Something has to give. Per a longstanding family agreement, the grandfather has maintained his Swedish residency by coming to stay with his son every six months. Can this clause be renegotiated, or will it chain the family to its past forever?

Through a series of quickly changing perspectives, in The Family Clause Jonas Hassen Khemiri evokes an intimate portrait of a chaotic and perfectly normal family, deeply wounded by the death of a child and the disappearance of a father.

©2018 Jonas Hassen Khemiri. English translation © 2020 by Alice Menzies (P)2020 Blackstone Publishing

Excellent read

This was so gripping that I could not put it down. It was so relevant to family relationships in my experience. The style of writing was surprisingly unique. I wish I could have read it in Swedish. The audio performance was excellent.