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Winter Sun
On a nine-day winter break in Tenerife, where nothing is quite good enough, Miki Lentin tries in vain to ask his ailing, elderly Irish Jewish father questions about their past before it's too late. The absurdity and hilarity of family holidays in the sun are brought to life in this sharp and fiercely honest novel that crosses borders from the narrator's home in Dublin to his grandmother's apartment in Israel, carrying the reader on a tide of childhood pain, a search for identity, history, and growth.
208 pages, Paperback
Published March 13, 2024
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Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
April 26, 2024
It's hard to review a book when you really didn't like the main charakters. The father especially. But I enjoyed the writing style.
November 16, 2024
I enjoyed reading this semi-autobiographical novel. The author points out at the very end in an acknowledgement that it's based on a real life incident. However, I can see why it's been novelised; it has all the characteristics of a novel; drama, dialogue, the building of tension, and possibly most importantly character development. Father and adult son take a winter holiday in Tenerife; each day is itemised; both the banality and magic of holidays is evoked. But it is the ever-changing relationship with father and son which is important. The father, called Abba (meaning father in Hebrew) is both an infuriating and attractive character, he is presented almost comically, monstrously self-obsessed, both kind and selfish, cultured, greedy, alcoholic, ill, declining. Here's a piece of typical dialogue:
'I'm going out tonight,' I said, while eating lunch on a stool at the pool bar.
'You're abandoning me?' Abba asked, biting into a cheese toastie.
'That's right.'
'Who with?'
'Richard.'
'You think he'll make better conversation than me?'
'I won't be back late.'
'Well make sure you don't get into trouble. You should hear the shouting and the screaming that goes on every night outside my room.'
You can see here the humour and the tension that is typical of the book. Abba here is both child-like and needy, and comically chiding 'well don't get into trouble'.
I felt the development of 'Miki', the author's fictional/real representation was nicely achieved. He does come to challenge his father, and to inquire about what happened during his childhood, seeking to source the origins of his anxiety and feelings of aimlessness in the way his father treated him, albeit it unconsciously.
I loved the way in which the father's espousal of famous American Jewish authors -- like Philip Roth and Saul Bellow -- is threaded through the novel. Miki is reading my favourite Bellow novel, 'Herzog', about the maddening after-effects of a very traumatic divorce. His progress through the book mirrors the difficult progress he makes with his father. This is, again, very nicely done.
The novel could have been edited down a little more to bring the drama/development of the story more to the fore. But this is a finely crafted work, make no mistake, and deserves real recognition. Having seen the film 'Aftersun' with Paul Mescal, I sort of linked it in my mind: both stories are about father-child relationships, looking back after some time, and have a poignant retrospective quality.
'I'm going out tonight,' I said, while eating lunch on a stool at the pool bar.
'You're abandoning me?' Abba asked, biting into a cheese toastie.
'That's right.'
'Who with?'
'Richard.'
'You think he'll make better conversation than me?'
'I won't be back late.'
'Well make sure you don't get into trouble. You should hear the shouting and the screaming that goes on every night outside my room.'
You can see here the humour and the tension that is typical of the book. Abba here is both child-like and needy, and comically chiding 'well don't get into trouble'.
I felt the development of 'Miki', the author's fictional/real representation was nicely achieved. He does come to challenge his father, and to inquire about what happened during his childhood, seeking to source the origins of his anxiety and feelings of aimlessness in the way his father treated him, albeit it unconsciously.
I loved the way in which the father's espousal of famous American Jewish authors -- like Philip Roth and Saul Bellow -- is threaded through the novel. Miki is reading my favourite Bellow novel, 'Herzog', about the maddening after-effects of a very traumatic divorce. His progress through the book mirrors the difficult progress he makes with his father. This is, again, very nicely done.
The novel could have been edited down a little more to bring the drama/development of the story more to the fore. But this is a finely crafted work, make no mistake, and deserves real recognition. Having seen the film 'Aftersun' with Paul Mescal, I sort of linked it in my mind: both stories are about father-child relationships, looking back after some time, and have a poignant retrospective quality.
June 7, 2024
In between jobs, Miki Lentin, the author of this novelized memoir, yields to his mother’s request to accompany his aging father on a vacation in Tenerife. Although Lentin agrees begrudgingly, he privately realizes it’s perhaps the last opportunity to ask him some burning questions—if he can get a word edgewise.
In “Winter Sun” the first-person narrator and his Abba (Hebrew for father) spend nine days together, during which they bicker, banter, complain, debate, and generally drive each other crazy in an indirect show of affection. Abba embodies many opinions, anxieties, and complexities reminiscent of Jewish characters from his favorite Philip Roth and Saul Bellow novels. He’s part schvitzer, an insufferable braggart, part kvetch, a complainer, yet part mensch, an upright person. In his former profession of television director, Abba divided his time between Ireland and Israel, which made him a distant father but a compelling role model. The narrator reflects:
“The pressure of living with a cultured, creative, yet complicated man intensified the older I got. As Abba lurched from one television production to another, and one health scare to another, I’d often hold my breath in his presence…”
The tension between father and son is palpable, but there’s also a force of attraction between them. Each chapter depicts one day, filled with changes of plan and unavoidable quarrels. Throughout, their back-and-forth raillery provide some of the novel’s most revealing passages, such as:
“What could be more important than the future of our homeland, der heym?” Abba asked, as I returned to the table.
“It’s not my homeland and I don’t think it’s yours.”
“Be-emet… really?”
“Why would I call it my homeland?”
“Why wouldn’t you? You spent enough time there as a child. I thought you liked it.”
“I don’t know where my home is anymore. It doesn’t matter.”
“But you’re Jewish.”
“So?”
“What do you mean ‘so’? Isn’t Israel important to you?”
“If it’s so important to you, why didn’t you stay there when you had the chance?”
“You know it was impossible. We’ve been over this…”
Amid all their confabulations, Lentin tries to summon the courage to ask the questions he and his therapist agreed he should ask. He wonders, as do readers, why he lets his father determine the direction of their conversations. The more father and son kibbitz, though, the clearer it becomes that, short of achieving any epiphany, it’s better they just keep talking.
In “Winter Sun” the first-person narrator and his Abba (Hebrew for father) spend nine days together, during which they bicker, banter, complain, debate, and generally drive each other crazy in an indirect show of affection. Abba embodies many opinions, anxieties, and complexities reminiscent of Jewish characters from his favorite Philip Roth and Saul Bellow novels. He’s part schvitzer, an insufferable braggart, part kvetch, a complainer, yet part mensch, an upright person. In his former profession of television director, Abba divided his time between Ireland and Israel, which made him a distant father but a compelling role model. The narrator reflects:
“The pressure of living with a cultured, creative, yet complicated man intensified the older I got. As Abba lurched from one television production to another, and one health scare to another, I’d often hold my breath in his presence…”
The tension between father and son is palpable, but there’s also a force of attraction between them. Each chapter depicts one day, filled with changes of plan and unavoidable quarrels. Throughout, their back-and-forth raillery provide some of the novel’s most revealing passages, such as:
“What could be more important than the future of our homeland, der heym?” Abba asked, as I returned to the table.
“It’s not my homeland and I don’t think it’s yours.”
“Be-emet… really?”
“Why would I call it my homeland?”
“Why wouldn’t you? You spent enough time there as a child. I thought you liked it.”
“I don’t know where my home is anymore. It doesn’t matter.”
“But you’re Jewish.”
“So?”
“What do you mean ‘so’? Isn’t Israel important to you?”
“If it’s so important to you, why didn’t you stay there when you had the chance?”
“You know it was impossible. We’ve been over this…”
Amid all their confabulations, Lentin tries to summon the courage to ask the questions he and his therapist agreed he should ask. He wonders, as do readers, why he lets his father determine the direction of their conversations. The more father and son kibbitz, though, the clearer it becomes that, short of achieving any epiphany, it’s better they just keep talking.
December 22, 2025
Winter Sun by Miki Lentin is a sharply observant and deeply moving work of literary fiction that explores the complicated bond between a father and son during a nine-day winter holiday in Tenerife. Through candid dialogue, dry humor, and emotional restraint, Lentin captures the quiet ache of unresolved questions, inherited identity, and the fragile urgency of time.
The novel’s strength lies in its authenticity. The banter, disagreements, and moments of tenderness between father and son feel lived-in and real, revealing how love often exists beneath layers of irritation, misunderstanding, and silence. Lentin’s prose is intelligent, reflective, and often disarmingly funny, balancing emotional weight with levity.
For readers who appreciate introspective, character-driven literary fiction that examines family, memory, and identity with honesty and nuance, Winter Sun is a rewarding and resonant read.
The novel’s strength lies in its authenticity. The banter, disagreements, and moments of tenderness between father and son feel lived-in and real, revealing how love often exists beneath layers of irritation, misunderstanding, and silence. Lentin’s prose is intelligent, reflective, and often disarmingly funny, balancing emotional weight with levity.
For readers who appreciate introspective, character-driven literary fiction that examines family, memory, and identity with honesty and nuance, Winter Sun is a rewarding and resonant read.
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews