Jonas Hassen Khemiri

The Family Clause Jonas Hassen Khemiri

A tender, bruising novel of a family in crisis, The Family Clause reveals one of the real challenges in life- to not let your family circumstances define your destiny. 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, the proud patriarch, is perfect - at least, according to himself. Over the course of ten intense days, their 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. But the son is duty-bound to the father through a longstanding family agreement - the so-called father clause - and can this clause be renegotiated, or will it forever chain the family to its past? Through a series of quickly changing perspectives, 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.