What do you think?
Rate this book
Autopsy of a Father
"[Kramer's body of work is] precise and sumptuous . . . a song of emotion, but with a great lucidity about the humanity of simple people."― Swiss Federal Office of Culture, Swiss Grand Prize for Literature citation
"You need to read Pascale Kramer's books because they take you on a journey. You board a small ship that enters the human body, and what you felt while reading follows you for days after you've closed the book."― Elle (France)
"Restrained, chiseled, implacable, the novels of Pascale Kramer perfectly master the art of creating a diffuse discomfort. Poignant."― Marie Claire (Switzerland)
When a young woman returns to her childhood home after her estranged father's death, she begins to piece together the final years of his life. What changed him from a prominent left-wing journalist to a bitter racist who defended the murder of a defenseless African immigrant? Kramer exposes a country gripped by intolerance and violence to unearth the source of a family's fall from grace.
Set in Paris and its suburbs, and inspired by the real-life scandal of a French author and intellectual, Autopsy of a Father blends sharp observations about familial dynamics with resonant political and philosophical questions, taking a scalpel to the racism and anti-immigrant sentiment spreading just beneath the skin of modern society.
Pascale Kramer , recipient of the 2017 Swiss Grand Prize for Literature, is the author of fourteen books, including three novels published in The Living , The Child , and Autopsy of a Father , which was named a finalist for the La Closerie des Lilas, Ouest-France, and Orange du Livre prizes. Born in Geneva, she has worked in Los Angeles, and now lives in Paris, where she directs a documentary film festival about children's rights.
"You need to read Pascale Kramer's books because they take you on a journey. You board a small ship that enters the human body, and what you felt while reading follows you for days after you've closed the book."― Elle (France)
"Restrained, chiseled, implacable, the novels of Pascale Kramer perfectly master the art of creating a diffuse discomfort. Poignant."― Marie Claire (Switzerland)
When a young woman returns to her childhood home after her estranged father's death, she begins to piece together the final years of his life. What changed him from a prominent left-wing journalist to a bitter racist who defended the murder of a defenseless African immigrant? Kramer exposes a country gripped by intolerance and violence to unearth the source of a family's fall from grace.
Set in Paris and its suburbs, and inspired by the real-life scandal of a French author and intellectual, Autopsy of a Father blends sharp observations about familial dynamics with resonant political and philosophical questions, taking a scalpel to the racism and anti-immigrant sentiment spreading just beneath the skin of modern society.
Pascale Kramer , recipient of the 2017 Swiss Grand Prize for Literature, is the author of fourteen books, including three novels published in The Living , The Child , and Autopsy of a Father , which was named a finalist for the La Closerie des Lilas, Ouest-France, and Orange du Livre prizes. Born in Geneva, she has worked in Los Angeles, and now lives in Paris, where she directs a documentary film festival about children's rights.
- GenresLiterary FictionFiction
208 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2017
2 people are currently reading
53 people want to read
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 11 of 11 reviews
October 16, 2019
I’ll review this some day.
July 10, 2017
Ania is estranged from her father, Gabriel, a prominent journalist, not having seen him for four years. However, she decides to visit him with her young son, Theo. The visit is an awkward one. Ania is shocked to learn the next day that her father has committed suicide. Ania returns to her father’s home where she grew up and tries to piece together the last years of her father’s life. She discovers that her father was fired from his job when he defended the murder of a harmless African immigrant. Her father’s actions have released a violent response in the community. How did her father turn into such a racist?
I was very impressed by this short novel translated from the French language in which the author wrote. It’s a quiet book but kept me riveted to the pages with a chill up my spine. The title is a perfect one as this book is in fact an autopsy of this man, an in depth look at his life, family and animosity towards immigrants. It’s insightful and compelling and casts a light on the racial tension in France.
I now want to read more of this author’s work and I’ll be getting a chance to do just that since, along with an ARC of Ms. Kramer’s newest book, the publisher also kindly sent me a copy of “The Child” by the same author. You’ll be seeing a review on that book fairly soon!
Very unsettling and quite fascinating. Recommended.
This book was given to me by the publisher in return for an honest review.
I was very impressed by this short novel translated from the French language in which the author wrote. It’s a quiet book but kept me riveted to the pages with a chill up my spine. The title is a perfect one as this book is in fact an autopsy of this man, an in depth look at his life, family and animosity towards immigrants. It’s insightful and compelling and casts a light on the racial tension in France.
I now want to read more of this author’s work and I’ll be getting a chance to do just that since, along with an ARC of Ms. Kramer’s newest book, the publisher also kindly sent me a copy of “The Child” by the same author. You’ll be seeing a review on that book fairly soon!
Very unsettling and quite fascinating. Recommended.
This book was given to me by the publisher in return for an honest review.
March 30, 2021
An unsettling book that grapples the topic of racial discrimination in France, but it's mostly about the relationship between the protagonist, Ania, and her "estranged" father Gabriel. The book is well crafted, the language is succinct and expressive. The story is depressing, mostly due to the protagonist, who seems to be unhappy with just about everything in her life. A lot of things are not clearly explained in the story: the story claims that Ania has been estranged from her father for several years: Why? it's not explained, Gabriel doesn't seem to have been such a terribly bad father. What happened to the mother? It's only mentioned once, and sounds like she suffered a brutal death, but we never get to know exactly. The book ends rather abruptly, without any ado, almost as if the last pages had been torn out.
I enjoyed the literal creativity and language of this book, but subtracted a star because I felt so depressed when I finished it, there was no room for optimism.
I enjoyed the literal creativity and language of this book, but subtracted a star because I felt so depressed when I finished it, there was no room for optimism.
July 6, 2017
Ania and her son Theo are traveling by train, en route to visit her father, Gabriel, at his country home. Unbeknownst to them, Gabriel is riding on the same train car. He observes them from a distance, and sketches a scene of the two of them in his notebook, capturing an emotional scene between mother and son, a scene he does not truly understand. It is a voyeuristic encounter, and something that, once discovered later in the story, Ania feels a sense of betrayal and exposure about. This scene is a distillation of the relationship between father and daughter...one where they interpret and misinterpret each other from a distance, feeling no closeness but only disappointment and frustration.
As the novel moves along, you see that, at almost every juncture, Gabriel doesn't understand Ania, and Ania doesn't understand Gabriel. He was wealthy, an intellectual, a journalist, and a bit of a celebrity in the small town where they lived. Ania was socially awkward, a poor student, and suffered for never being the child who her father wanted. She had performed so poorly in school that she was held back repeatedly, and eventually went to boarding school. When she graduated, she never come back home, moving to an apartment in the Paris suburbs. It was all that time, until that train journey, that had passed between when Gabriel and Ania last saw each other.
Gabriel uses his covert status to alight from the train far in advance of his daughter and grandson, speeding to arrive at his house long before they do. He never acknowledges their shared transportation, and spends most of the time criticizing the fact that Ania came without giving any advanced notice. While he is secretly glad she's there, he behaves as though her presence is a great inconvenience. She explained that, after seeing him in the newspaper that day, she made a last-minute decision to see him.
But why was Gabriel in the news, and why was it such a big deal for Ania? As a mildly public figure, Gabriel's presence in print wasn't uncommon, but the particulars of this publicity were shocking. Awhile back, a black man was murdered by some teenagers who lived in Gabriel's village. The victim was an immigrant who was walking alone, trying to find work, and the teenagers brutally attacked him. He was left to die in a field, his body not discovered for days. The case made national headlines because it was racially-motivated hate crime, and most people denounced the boys...except for Gabriel. He came to their defense, in a xenophobic rant that sent shockwaves around the country. He was immediately deemed a pariah, was publicly and prolifically ridiculed, and lost his job as a result of his actions. It was seeing all of this that prompted Ania to make the rushed visit - to talk to him and try to make sense of why he did it. However, he refused any discussion of the sort. The visit brought no kind of reconciliation, but further deepened the divide between them.
The next day, Ania received a call from a woman she didn't know, but who turned out to be Gabriel's second wife, Clara, explaining that he had committed suicide that night, and she needed to come to help with the funeral and estate preparations. From there, the story follows Ania, Clara, and the plethora of supporting characters who surround them during this tumultuous time. From those characters, Ania learns a lot about her father, seeing things from an adult's perspective now, but does she come to terms with her father and his legacy?
Autopsy of a Father begins with a train ride, and from that point there is a constant sense of motion. Whether by bicycle, car, on foot, or by train - characters are all in some state of motion. Not just from place to place, there is also regular movement between the past and the present. The story constantly slides back and forth from present day in a small French village, to the Parisian suburbs, and then to various points in the past. The motion happens quickly, often without clear notice, which imbues Autopsy of a Father with a disorienting quality.
Another matter is the translation. You know when you read a translated work, and the writing feels so natural and easy that it's almost as if it wasn't translated at all? That wasn't the case with this book. In fact, there was a lot of awkward or confusing phrasing throughout the novel. The meaning was there, but it certainly impacted my enjoyment of the story. I suspect that this is the translator trying to keep the text close to the original French as possible, but in the end it detracted from the reading experience for me.
Autopsy of a Father is certainly an interesting reading experience. It expertly weaves in and out of the complexities of father-daughter relationships, class struggles, and small town life. It incorporates the xenophobia that is all too common throughout our world, and the brutal violence that surrounds it. It shows how public shaming and outrage impacts not only the object of that rage but a whole community. It is a story that, in many ways, is as much from the current day as it could be from any time in history; the factors at play transcend time. While I was unsatisfied with the translation, the work itself is compelling and definitely worth exploring.
As the novel moves along, you see that, at almost every juncture, Gabriel doesn't understand Ania, and Ania doesn't understand Gabriel. He was wealthy, an intellectual, a journalist, and a bit of a celebrity in the small town where they lived. Ania was socially awkward, a poor student, and suffered for never being the child who her father wanted. She had performed so poorly in school that she was held back repeatedly, and eventually went to boarding school. When she graduated, she never come back home, moving to an apartment in the Paris suburbs. It was all that time, until that train journey, that had passed between when Gabriel and Ania last saw each other.
Gabriel uses his covert status to alight from the train far in advance of his daughter and grandson, speeding to arrive at his house long before they do. He never acknowledges their shared transportation, and spends most of the time criticizing the fact that Ania came without giving any advanced notice. While he is secretly glad she's there, he behaves as though her presence is a great inconvenience. She explained that, after seeing him in the newspaper that day, she made a last-minute decision to see him.
But why was Gabriel in the news, and why was it such a big deal for Ania? As a mildly public figure, Gabriel's presence in print wasn't uncommon, but the particulars of this publicity were shocking. Awhile back, a black man was murdered by some teenagers who lived in Gabriel's village. The victim was an immigrant who was walking alone, trying to find work, and the teenagers brutally attacked him. He was left to die in a field, his body not discovered for days. The case made national headlines because it was racially-motivated hate crime, and most people denounced the boys...except for Gabriel. He came to their defense, in a xenophobic rant that sent shockwaves around the country. He was immediately deemed a pariah, was publicly and prolifically ridiculed, and lost his job as a result of his actions. It was seeing all of this that prompted Ania to make the rushed visit - to talk to him and try to make sense of why he did it. However, he refused any discussion of the sort. The visit brought no kind of reconciliation, but further deepened the divide between them.
The next day, Ania received a call from a woman she didn't know, but who turned out to be Gabriel's second wife, Clara, explaining that he had committed suicide that night, and she needed to come to help with the funeral and estate preparations. From there, the story follows Ania, Clara, and the plethora of supporting characters who surround them during this tumultuous time. From those characters, Ania learns a lot about her father, seeing things from an adult's perspective now, but does she come to terms with her father and his legacy?
Autopsy of a Father begins with a train ride, and from that point there is a constant sense of motion. Whether by bicycle, car, on foot, or by train - characters are all in some state of motion. Not just from place to place, there is also regular movement between the past and the present. The story constantly slides back and forth from present day in a small French village, to the Parisian suburbs, and then to various points in the past. The motion happens quickly, often without clear notice, which imbues Autopsy of a Father with a disorienting quality.
Another matter is the translation. You know when you read a translated work, and the writing feels so natural and easy that it's almost as if it wasn't translated at all? That wasn't the case with this book. In fact, there was a lot of awkward or confusing phrasing throughout the novel. The meaning was there, but it certainly impacted my enjoyment of the story. I suspect that this is the translator trying to keep the text close to the original French as possible, but in the end it detracted from the reading experience for me.
Autopsy of a Father is certainly an interesting reading experience. It expertly weaves in and out of the complexities of father-daughter relationships, class struggles, and small town life. It incorporates the xenophobia that is all too common throughout our world, and the brutal violence that surrounds it. It shows how public shaming and outrage impacts not only the object of that rage but a whole community. It is a story that, in many ways, is as much from the current day as it could be from any time in history; the factors at play transcend time. While I was unsatisfied with the translation, the work itself is compelling and definitely worth exploring.
August 9, 2017
I think it is fair to say that Kramer manages to sneak into your head-space and then lets the events unfold in front of you like a slideshow of personal memories.
Family can give you the best experiences in life, but also the worst. Parental relationships can be the foundations of your identity, however the flip-side of the coin can also be a dysfunctional relationship that means there is no foundation of identity at all or a lack of one.
Although the relationship between Ania and Gabriel takes the main stage in this story, it is so much more than a daughter’s autopsy of the relationship with her father.
Kramer rips a plaster off of the pus filled boil of immigration. She has chosen the suburbs of Paris to point a spotlight at this and the underlying racial tensions in France. To be completely fair, to France that is, it is a topic of contention in quite a lot of western countries at the moment. An issue that has swayed elections and given fodder to the right-wing. We are living in an era where we have to be very careful that we don’t repeat mistakes of the past.
Gabriel is a well-known and admired journalist until he decides to publicly support a group of young French men, who ruthlessly murdered an innocent African immigrant. The victim was in the wrong place at the wrong time. Gabriel is vilified for his xenophobic rant. He loses his job, and his neighbours and fellow villagers aren’t afraid to show him how displeased they are by his opinion.
The former left-wing intellectual has suddenly taken on an anti-immigrant stance, which is sort of hypocritical considering that his wife was Iranian. His family structure sort of mirrors that of his home country. His half French and half Iranian daughter embraces her dead mother’s culture and religion. He loved his wife, and yet he rejects his daughter. He used to embrace the diversity in his country and now he rejects anything but the French culture.
Ania is unaware of all of this. The two of them have a fractured relationship. She never lived up to his expectations and he never accepted her shortcomings. The two of them are strangers bound by nothing more than blood. Ania isn’t really bothered by the lack of interest, at least that is what she tells herself. What really gets her goat is when her father treats his grandson, her son, with the same disinterest. I think most readers will be able to comprehend the difference. You get used to the indifference or the negative qualities your parents have and accept them as part of their eccentricities, however we react like protective parents when our children are subjected to the same personality flaws.
There is a moment in the story when Gabriel and Ania are in the same train compartment, and yet he pretends he hasn’t seen them. Almost as if he doesn’t want to associate himself with the two of them in public. Are these the actions of a xenophobe or of a man ashamed of his past actions? Is this realisation the reason he commits suicide?
In a way the story ends without any definitive answers. There is no clarification between Ania and Gabriel, and no resolution in general. Of course that is the reality of life and relationships, sometimes conflicts aren’t resolved.
Aside from the parallels Kramer draws to the political situation in France, which is quite cleverly done in the context of a family setting, I really think she portrayed the relationship between daughter and father well. The dysfunctional side of family, the distances that grow between people, and the hard and hurtful truth that usually remains unspoken.
*I received an ARC courtesy of the publisher via Edelweiss.*
Family can give you the best experiences in life, but also the worst. Parental relationships can be the foundations of your identity, however the flip-side of the coin can also be a dysfunctional relationship that means there is no foundation of identity at all or a lack of one.
Although the relationship between Ania and Gabriel takes the main stage in this story, it is so much more than a daughter’s autopsy of the relationship with her father.
Kramer rips a plaster off of the pus filled boil of immigration. She has chosen the suburbs of Paris to point a spotlight at this and the underlying racial tensions in France. To be completely fair, to France that is, it is a topic of contention in quite a lot of western countries at the moment. An issue that has swayed elections and given fodder to the right-wing. We are living in an era where we have to be very careful that we don’t repeat mistakes of the past.
Gabriel is a well-known and admired journalist until he decides to publicly support a group of young French men, who ruthlessly murdered an innocent African immigrant. The victim was in the wrong place at the wrong time. Gabriel is vilified for his xenophobic rant. He loses his job, and his neighbours and fellow villagers aren’t afraid to show him how displeased they are by his opinion.
The former left-wing intellectual has suddenly taken on an anti-immigrant stance, which is sort of hypocritical considering that his wife was Iranian. His family structure sort of mirrors that of his home country. His half French and half Iranian daughter embraces her dead mother’s culture and religion. He loved his wife, and yet he rejects his daughter. He used to embrace the diversity in his country and now he rejects anything but the French culture.
Ania is unaware of all of this. The two of them have a fractured relationship. She never lived up to his expectations and he never accepted her shortcomings. The two of them are strangers bound by nothing more than blood. Ania isn’t really bothered by the lack of interest, at least that is what she tells herself. What really gets her goat is when her father treats his grandson, her son, with the same disinterest. I think most readers will be able to comprehend the difference. You get used to the indifference or the negative qualities your parents have and accept them as part of their eccentricities, however we react like protective parents when our children are subjected to the same personality flaws.
There is a moment in the story when Gabriel and Ania are in the same train compartment, and yet he pretends he hasn’t seen them. Almost as if he doesn’t want to associate himself with the two of them in public. Are these the actions of a xenophobe or of a man ashamed of his past actions? Is this realisation the reason he commits suicide?
In a way the story ends without any definitive answers. There is no clarification between Ania and Gabriel, and no resolution in general. Of course that is the reality of life and relationships, sometimes conflicts aren’t resolved.
Aside from the parallels Kramer draws to the political situation in France, which is quite cleverly done in the context of a family setting, I really think she portrayed the relationship between daughter and father well. The dysfunctional side of family, the distances that grow between people, and the hard and hurtful truth that usually remains unspoken.
*I received an ARC courtesy of the publisher via Edelweiss.*
March 22, 2020
more of a novella than a novel, it covers only a few days but we learn so much about Ania's world - much of it steeped in the circumstances with her father, but also reflected in her son. [return]It leaves me wanting more - what happens next? Does this change the course of her life? How does Theo feel - years later when he is able to explicate it? [return]There was a great beauty and truth talking about the relationships that we fall into instead of choosing, and how deep those feelings can run - the wife of a relative, friend of a parent, caretaker of our youth. They are chosen without our say, but we're HUMAN, of course we have feelings about the other person. And about the feelings of the person in between.
March 15, 2018
Kramer wrote this book in a subtle manner. What is stated provides minimal details. It likes hearing a story with only bits of it presented. You feel like you're missing many pieces of the puzzle. Ultimately, I liked the book, I was curious to know more, but I accept how an author choices present a story.
August 28, 2018
I wish the author had concentrated more on the story of the formerly liberal father who turned to a right-wing racist. That was way more interesting than the story of the daughter looking back on her relationship with her father.
May 8, 2018
Had me intrigued, but it left me wanting to know more about the father and why everyone in the village hates him.
January 7, 2020
The relationship of father-daughter is revealed during the father's traumatic time of loosing his job.
July 29, 2017
An infinite nostalgia for everything that had gone wrong in her childhood began to weigh down on her like a stone.
Ania has been estranged from her father for years, and when he dies, she returns to her childhood home and has to deal with all the unresolved issues she left behind. Gabriel was a prominent and strong-willed man, who enjoyed his position until an ill-advised rant in which he defends the brutal murder of a young migrant turns him into a pariah. He was also an exacting man whose disappointment with his daughter's imperfections drove her away.
Autopsy of a Father is a slender book that packs a surprising amount into its 200 pages. Ania is a woman raising her deaf son alone, mostly content in the small world she has carved out for them in a Paris suburb. Her final unsatisfying meeting with her father as well as her return after his death bring up memories of her childhood as well as a needed reckoning with her present. This is my first encounter with Swiss author Pascale Kramer's writing, but it certainly won't be my last.
Ania has been estranged from her father for years, and when he dies, she returns to her childhood home and has to deal with all the unresolved issues she left behind. Gabriel was a prominent and strong-willed man, who enjoyed his position until an ill-advised rant in which he defends the brutal murder of a young migrant turns him into a pariah. He was also an exacting man whose disappointment with his daughter's imperfections drove her away.
Autopsy of a Father is a slender book that packs a surprising amount into its 200 pages. Ania is a woman raising her deaf son alone, mostly content in the small world she has carved out for them in a Paris suburb. Her final unsatisfying meeting with her father as well as her return after his death bring up memories of her childhood as well as a needed reckoning with her present. This is my first encounter with Swiss author Pascale Kramer's writing, but it certainly won't be my last.
Displaying 1 - 11 of 11 reviews