Our Fathers - Rebecca Wait

As a reader you sometimes get that indefinable frisson of anticipation about a book without really knowing why, it just hits you. And so it was with Our Fathers. I hadn’t read either of Rebecca Wait’s previous two novels so it wasn’t a prior experience thing. The book seemed to lurch out at me from numerous feeds on social media. So I was delighted when Katya Ellis from Quercus Books sent me a copy.

But did my intuition hit the mark? Our Fathers is one of those beautifully considered and impeccably structured pieces of work that stuns the reader with its abundance of paradoxes. An extreme and tragic event occurs within a small, sequestered community in the Hebrides. It’s the stuff of major news headlines. All are affected to a degree but none more so than the child who survives the familial massacre. Escaping the island of Litta as a young, damaged man Tom returns after twenty years still seeking answers and closures.

The story that follows is an eloquent exploration of extreme trauma and grief that invites the reader to consider the age old topic of nature versus nurture.

‘He had already realized in a vague way that you got your idea of yourself from other people. You didn’t choose it yourself.’

Considerations, too, of domestic abuse, potential gaslighting, and the effect on the children. 

‘And Tommy had thought all fathers were like this, but behind closed doors this was how all men treated their wives.’

Tommy also struggles with the unenviable dilemma of who he really is intrinsically and to what degree he should fear his future.

‘It was a strange form of cognitive dissonance, being able to recognize his father’s attitudes as hideous while finding them living within himself. But he would not pass this sickness on to his child.’

With evocative yet economic prose Ms. Waits subtly uses location as metaphor for the conflict within Tommy Baird’s head. A landscape wild and unforgiving at times yet with an innate beauty and peace that has the potential to heal and sustain. Avoiding the temptation to offer extravagance in the descriptions the impact is all the more potent. 

The characterisations are understated, ordinary people pursuing  their everyday existences with routines and rituals that shape the framework of their lives, understanding that when that framework gets bent out of shape for whatever reason they must quietly, unashamedly strive to restore the balance, no matter what. Punished by the arch enemy hindsight and its absence when they need it they endure as best they can. Malcolm and Tom will tug at your heart. Drawn with compassion and a subtle, almost imperceptible humour these people demand a humility and respect from the reader. 

This is a ‘quiet’ book but with a loud voice for it is one of those stories that can have you searching inside yourself to ask those impossible questions about who you are and how you are. For most of us the unthinkable doesn’t necessarily happen, the tragedy depicted here is one of those things you watch on TV never believing it could happen to you. But  this book illustrates vividly how it can happen. 

Was I alone in finding that the title made me think of the Lord’s Prayer? Forgiving those who trespass against us? No matter. I am certain I am not alone in finding this a book of substance, an elegant work with a powerful intent.