Only Son

by Kevin Moffett

Florida, 1982. A nine-year-old watches as his dead father's possessions are hauled away: his clothes and tools, his faux-leather recliner. His sensei says it's a perfect time to turn his weaknesses into weapons. His PE teacher says he runs like a pregnant ostrich. His mother takes out a personal ad. Everyone is trying to teach him a lesson but he is, it seems, a slow learner. Meanwhile, with each passing day, his father recedes, growing less and less plausible, almost a myth.

Twenty-five years later, adrift in suburban Southern California, married with a son of his own, he's still trying to sort through the fragments of his father's death while imparting his own sketchy education onto his son. Which snakes are poisonous? Why did I tell him that Candyland is based on a true story? Why has he stopped asking me to go skateboarding with him and his friends? After discovering a travel journal he didn't know his father kept, he and his son light out on a road trip, retracing the father's mystifying journey.

They drive up the Pacific Coast, foggy, overtaken by beauty. As he strains to decipher his father's notes, his relationship with his son begins to take on new heft and shape. With wit and compassion, Moffett delivers a bracingly intimate account of fatherhood, and discovery, and the experiences of two men far from home.

Genres: Fiction, Literary Fiction, Audiobook

1 pages, Audio CD

Published November 4, 2025

Reviews

[John Caleb Grenn · Rating 5 out of 5]

Only Son
By Kevin Moffett
Thanks to @mcswys for this early copy. Out November 4th.

Longlisted for the @nationalbookfoundation award for fiction.

Only Son is a casually profound skipping back and forth across a hopscotch line of innocence—one side, a child, confused and in awe; the other, the void of adulthood craving that childhood mystery that never really was.

The word that keeps coming to mind when I want to say what’s good about this book is its ESSENCE. The spirit of it. The abstracted object of this book as it leaves the page and meets you where you are—

It’s the moments that bring instant tears to the eyes, followed by quips that have you bubble over in laughter. That odd, hot, twisted up feeling in the face. Then the author will swing hard, catching the reader off guard with these moments where the prose hangs you over a vast canyon and lets you feel the expanse. Poetry. That mix of relief and horror seeing a late night sky full of stars, like you’re falling, but like you’re safe. Like you’re huge and you’re small at the exact same time.

The book is a look into all the lines we draw and borders we set to delineate who we are, what we have, what we know and all that we aren’t, don’t, can’t and won’t.

It’s is about the ways we tend our losses, how we keep remnants of people and places and memories alive through their things, the things they’ve left behind both concrete and intangible, the little reminders we hold on to tightly as we can, packing and moving and unpacking and storing and unstoring and finding and refinding and recalling and remembering until we can’t and we don’t and they’re gone.

Spoiler alert to everyone who expects a book from me at Christmas: It’ll probably be this.

[Liz Hein · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.5 ⭐️

A beautiful exploration of how grief ages with you

[Lily Echeverria · Rating 5 out of 5]

I wish I could give this 10 stars

[Tanner Hansen · Rating 5 out of 5]

In Only Son, it’s not sufficient for grief to be mixed with humor or for humor to be mixed with grief. The two are always inextricable. Pettiness goes hand in hand with generosity, resentment with tenderness, and not merely for the sake of contrast. Moffett shows that these things are not opposites, that they are each other’s essence. Only Son is a book that delights with every page, delivering sparkling, perfect details at a break-neck pace, while taking its time building to emotional moments that are bafflingly subtle and true. I loved this book. The funniest novel about fathers and sons maybe ever.

[ritareadthat · Rating 3 out of 5]

Another National Book Award finalist, Only Son chronicles the experiences of our narrator as he comes of age in the 1980s after his father's death. The book also then jumps 25 years into the future, and the narrator is now a father as well. There were many funny moments in this book, and I think it will definitely resonate with men more than women. I think for me, this was a case of my personal preferences when listening to an audiobook. Tbh, the narrator just wasn't doing it for me. He was very monotone in his narration, and that will kill a book for me every time. Definitely recommend print/ebook here.

[Christine Hall · Rating 4 out of 5]

Only Son by Kevin Moffett

The story begins in Florida, 1982, where a nine‑year‑old boy confronts grief as his dead father’s belongings are carted away. His childhood is marked by teachers, neighbors, and his mother all trying to “teach him lessons,” while his father’s presence fades. As he grows into adulthood and fatherhood, Moffett shows how absence shapes identity and how memory becomes both burden and companion. A deceptively readable novel whose quiet vignettes linger long after the last page.

[Andrea · Rating 5 out of 5]

I've noted in other books how I really dislike killing off the mom so the dad can have a relationship with his child. That doesn't happen in this book! In this book the dad dies.

Truly Moffett writes beautifully about parenting-- both about the parenting the unnamed son received in the 1980s and the parent he (unnamed now father) strives to be in this millenium. It's equally funny and bittersweet.

This is published by McSweeneys (and was longlisted for the National Book Award) and I can't help but think of Dave Eggers and A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius.

This was my first book of 2026 and it was an easy five stars.

[June Perry · Rating 5 out of 5]

Jack, please read this!

Heartbreaking, funny, so beautifully written.

[Alice Berry · Rating 5 out of 5]

the best thing a work of fiction can do for me is remind me of how absurd, sad, and funny life is. only son did exactly that.

it’s told in a series of vignettes from the narrator’s childhood, adulthood, and eventual fatherhood. so gorgeous, so quietly moving, deceptively readable. you can rip through it in an afternoon but it’s worth spending more time on it.

[Caleb Michael Sarvis · Rating 5 out of 5]

Moffett's portrait of a father-son (and grandmother) is incredibly moving, brilliantly vulnerable, and somehow turns silence into page-turning material.

[. · Rating 5 out of 5]

Perfect novel

[Deedi Brown (DeediReads) · Rating 4 out of 5]

Only Son was a dark horse of a National Book Award nominee; it was published by McSweeneys (a very small indie publisher) and I don’t think many people were aware of it before its nomination. What a travesty it would have been if this book had passed unnoticed by the masses!

This is a beautiful novel in vignettes that explores the way grief stays with you as you age, and the ways the loss of a father at an early age can impact a man as he becomes a father himself. The prose is the kind that switches between making you laugh and taking your breath away; I dog-eared several pages to save passages forever. For example:

Sometimes I can summon his voice: a thin, distant rasp. One hand grenade could kill us all… he'd say when people were standing too close. Go look for me in the other room… when I was annoying him. Childhood is a song you hear so many times you stop listening to the words. Let us cross the river and rest under the shade of the trees. Probably half the things my father said to me he never said to me.

At the end of the day, though, I felt a bit like this book slipped through my brain like water. I’m left with more of an impression of beauty than any exact details. Still, I’m very glad I read it.

[S · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book was so much better than I expected. I was surprised to see that it was only long listed for the National Book Award. I think this should have won the Booker. It is so much better than "Flesh" and it has that bare Booker tone while still offering meaning/heart.

Some of the lines in here were so honest and beautiful. "Years from now when my son looks back, what I'd like is for him to remember me as a vital but inconspicuous presence, rushing ahead to open doors and stepping aside."

[Reem · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is unlike anything I’ve ever read before, in the best way possible. It’s beautifully specific and sad and insightful and was a joy to read. The second half is slow and the first half’s humor gives way to melancholy in a way that makes sense but is a bit of a downer after such a funny start.

[Olivia's Book Talk · Rating 4 out of 5]

“Children, I read somewhere, are the living messages we send to a time we will not see.”

Our unnamed narrator is grieving the loss of his father, and throughout three distinct periods in his life—childhood, adulthood, a roadtrip with his teenage son—we see the ways in which “what-could-have-been” linger. With any distinct absence, we continuously fill in the blanks to make sense of what it means to move forward without them. You never stop looking around at your life, wondering where they would fit in.

The prose in this truly shines and there are several passages and concepts I keep coming back to (i.e. parenting taking a lot of words, the blue cardigan). The pacing and style remain consistent, with prose that feels deeply human and personal, adding depth to the stream-of-consciousness quick glimpse into someone’s life. It was powerful to see how one recollection would then suddenly bring up his dad—he can’t help but think of him and it’s honest to how grief will always pop up unexpectedly.

A theme that stood out to me was the awareness of time and your place within it, especially as it relates to parenting. Outliving your parent, or seeing your kid get older and pass the age you were when you had such a formative loss. How you still have to navigate your own grief, even after becoming a parent, and it reminds us that even parents are living their life for the first time too. Seeing your relationship with your parent change as you have your own kids. Seeing your kid simply grow up.

One connective thread I’ve seen in the @ longlisted books, is the use of narrative duality, and how we’re repeatedly (complimentary) following two equally compelling storylines. This book strays from that, as it’s clearly about the arc of a singular character, but (!!) the themes themselves play into that duality, with how something (coming-of-age, grief, memory, innocence) looks in childhood and adulthood.

Another story I liked more than I thought I would, but I’m walking away from it appreciative rather than deeply moved. I also think it strayed into feeling monotonous and monotone, which is noticeable in a short book and made it hard to get back into anytime I had to pause my reading (I would recommend reading it in 1-2 sittings).

📚Follow for more on Instagram: @oliviasbooktalk

[Rex Tse · Rating 3 out of 5]

maybe I'm just too stupid but I don't get it past like half of part 2

[Rachel]

Better than I expected but two weeks later and I don’t remember anything about it

[John Waites · Rating 4 out of 5]

If you’re a reader who loves books that hit you right in the feels, "Only Son" by Kevin Moffett is a must-read. This poignant story delves into the complex relationship between fathers and sons, son and mother through the lens of a man grappling with the loss of his own father—something I can relate to deeply.

Moffett brilliantly captures the nuances of life’s everyday struggles while keeping an engaging style throughout. The characters are richly drawn and their emotional connections are fascinating, making every interaction mesmerizing. The way he handles grief is simply stunning—it's sincere and thought-provoking, avoiding clichés and instead offering a fresh perspective.

"Only Son" delivers a rollercoaster of emotions flawlessly. Masterfully written, compelling, and painfully insightful. A book overflowing with honesty, insight, wit, and a hint of sadness that connected with me profoundly.

[Mike · Rating 5 out of 5]

Perfectly encapsulates what jt is to lose someone and how it never leaves you. Perfection.

[Michael Doane · Rating 5 out of 5]

Only Son is a compact, quietly devastating novel about what remains when a parent disappears and how that absence echoes across generations. With precision and emotional restraint, Kevin Moffett traces the long half life of grief, showing how a boy’s early loss becomes the unspoken architecture of a man’s inner life.

Set first in Florida in the early 1980s, the novel captures childhood with unsentimental clarity: the small humiliations, half-learned lessons, and well-meaning adults who offer guidance that rarely lands. The father, already dead, recedes quickly into abstraction less a person than a shifting idea while the boy absorbs a world that feels both instructive and profoundly indifferent.

Twenty years later, the narrative widens without losing its intimacy. Now a father himself, the protagonist navigates suburban life in Southern California while struggling to pass on wisdom he’s never fully possessed. The rediscovered travel journal becomes both catalyst and mirror, prompting a road trip that retraces his father’s mysterious journey and reorients his relationship with his own son. Along the fog-laced Pacific Coast, the novel finds its emotional center: not resolution, but recognition.

Moffett’s prose is spare, wry, and deeply humane. In just 100 pages, Only Son manages to say something enduring about inheritance not of traits or stories alone, but of questions left unanswered, and the quiet hope that attention and presence might interrupt their transmission.

[Tara · Rating 5 out of 5]

Only Son is a poignant and intimate exploration of fatherhood, grief, and the threads that connect generations. Kevin Moffett crafts a narrative that is both humorous and heart-rending, skillfully navigating the tension between loss and love, memory and discovery.

The story begins with a young boy in Florida, trying to process the absence of his father, and spans decades as he becomes a father himself. Moffett captures the subtle complexities of parent-child relationships with wit, compassion, and insight, exploring how grief shapes identity and how the lessons we inherit can be as confounding as they are formative.

The journey up the Pacific Coast, retracing a father’s travel journal, becomes more than a road trip, it’s a meditation on understanding, reconciliation, and the small, intimate moments that define a life. Moffett’s prose is clear, precise, and empathetic, making the emotional landscape of his characters profoundly accessible.

Only Son is a brief but deeply affecting literary work, offering readers a moving reflection on family, memory, and the ways love persists beyond absence.

[Benjamin Duchek · Rating 4 out of 5]

I set the book aside with ten pages to go and completed some chores. It felt great to know I still had a bit to go with this beguiling story.

In an era where writers tell you, tell you again, and keep telling you their story, Kevin Moffett goes the opposite direction. The book is made up of three parts of the protagonist's life -- his childhood, a period of adulthood, and a road trip with his son. It's about fatherhood and being a son -- I inhaled its short page count like a great, satisfying breath. He's earned the reader's trust to go way further than he does, but it was over (too) fast.

I'm not in love with the structure of the book; altogether, it's about 200 paragraph segments that are supposed to represent journal entries -- or for a short attention span? A typical novel format would have been better. There are still some of us out here who can take it.

For a debut novel, though, this book is amazing. And I'll read it again certainly when my son and I scout colleges in a self-driving car.

[Lee Klein · Rating 5 out of 5]

Perfect example of the fractured ADHD-era novel (plentiful short sections separated by space breaks throughout, easily integrating checking of phone at regular intervals), focused on the experience and echoes of grief, fathers and sons, mothers and sons, its setting in time and place from sea to shining sea (early '80s humid Florida shambles to edge of contemporary California desert), as well as a quixotic sort of quest up the west coast. Sometimes like literary stand-up comedy, the laughs less out loud than silent and sad (SSLs), a couple hundred flash fictions arranged to assume the form of a novel that feels real and novel in its movements, its spirit, its artful autofictional swerve. Short but the RPM isn't unnecessarily accelerated (not really something to be read in a single sitting). The beat seems set to savor, the AMB (ambiguity) set so fiction blooms and opens like poetry without ever seeming fancy like that. A really solid read, subtly about class, more obviously about aging, and suggestive of what it means to be a man (sans "manliness").

[Kathleen · Rating 4 out of 5]

National Book Award for Fiction Longlist 2025. The novel begins when the narrator’s father dies when he was just nine years old. He is an awkward child. While his mother does her best, she struggles with sharing memories of the father with him. The child wonders how his life might have been if his father was still alive.

The second part of the novel focuses on the narrator’s son’s early childhood. He delights in the child’s quirky personality. However, by the time the child is seventeen, the inevitable pull for independence starts to take place. To postpone this shift, the father initiates a pre-college road trip up the California coast, tracing a route described in his father’s travel notebook. Clearly, the father seeks to connect with his own father while creating memories with his son.

This is a novel of observations and abundant humor. At the story’s conclusion, he writes a letter to his son to let him know that the son is the best thing that ever happened to him. Enjoy!

[David Carriere · Rating 5 out of 5]

Only Son is a poignant, multilayered exploration of fatherhood, memory, and the passage of time. Kevin Moffett intricately weaves together the threads of loss, identity, and the quiet lessons we carry from one generation to the next. Beginning with a nine year old boy grappling with the aftermath of his father’s death and extending to his own experience as a father, the narrative is at once deeply personal and universally resonant.

Moffett’s prose is intimate and reflective, full of wit, compassion, and gentle humor. The road trip that anchors the latter part of the story is both a literal and metaphorical journey, uncovering not only the father’s past but also illuminating the evolving relationship between father and son. Only Son is a rich meditation on family, legacy, and the ways we make sense of our parents’ lives while shaping our own.

[Mark · Rating 5 out of 5]

Kevin Moffett's ONLY SON is one of the most beautiful books I've ever read about parents and children. Especially concentrating on the protagonist's relationship to his father, and then his son, along with the conflicted relationship with his mother, ONLY SON is written almost in straightforward journalistic style: lots of "I's" beginning sentences. Ironically, although the writing is spare, the emotions are intense. Maybe it's because I'm a father myself, one with a very conflicted relationship with my parents, the book had a "Cat's in the Cradle" effect. I was profoundly moved and I recommend this for anyone who has a child. The sadness, of course, originates from the inevitable independence of the son, what's lost, what's gained, and what's never to be recovered.

[Lindsey Z · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.75 stars

This novella is divided into three sections from the point of view of one man: when he was a child, when his son is a child, and when his son is a young adult.

Centered around the death of his father when he was young, the narrator explores what it means to move through life without his father, what relationship he has with his mother now that is father is dead, and what relationship he has with his own son as he ages.

I was pleasantly surprised how much I enjoyed the prose; it's a mix of funny and wise and introspective.

Ultimately it didn't go anywhere satisfying by the end but the words on the page and the insights they contain are worth your time.

[Carrie · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent writing with a unique point of view. The narrator lost his father to illness at age 8 or 9 and has spend his life coming to terms with the missing presence. His mother is not particularly loving or helpful in overcoming the loss and his biggest feeling is isolation. It is a beautiful exploration of grief. Fast forward and now the narrator has a son of his own and tries to break the cycle of not knowing or understanding, but it is harder than he realizes. There are some real gems of insight and revelation, but I think the over-arching ides is how to not pass grief on to the next generation.

[Amber · Rating 4 out of 5]

There is a scene at the end of this book where the grandson calls his grandmother in between each course of a sushi dinner to tell her what the course was and how it tasted, and it brought back the feeling of calling my grandfather to tell him something I’d done-chicken dinner in Frankenmuth, standing at the top of the Duquesne Incline, looking out over New York City from the top of the rock, even as simple as painting a picture at the library-that tears rolled down my face. What a gift to have had such a person, what a gift to live in a world where a novel can evoke this feeling in me while I drive around in my car for work.

[Dmkb · Rating 5 out of 5]

The writing style is very unique - short sentences, little sentiment, but somehow conveys deep emotion. A boy loses his father and his mother isn’t much of a caregiver. He has strong memories of his father and is trying to hold onto his possessions which his mother sheds over his life. Second half of book is about his own son. He loves his son deeply and they are close but writing doesn’t convey their emotion. When his son is a teenager, they take a road trip retracing the trip documented in his father’s cryptic journal just before his son leaves for college. Writing is spare but deep.