Douglas Galbraith arrived home to Scotland after a brief research trip in 2003 to find that his Japanese wife had repatriated herself and the couple's two young sons with no intention of ever contacting her husband again. An established writer of historical literary fiction, Galbraith has been frank in interviews about his wish to keep My Son, My Son out of the 'painful lives' section of bookshops. His life before and after the abduction is blacked out, often frustratingly so as we wonder if he received help from family or friends when his various efforts to find his children are thwarted by shameful bureaucratic indifference and impotence. With such a difficult and personal subject matter, it is to the author's credit that he refuses to indulge the reader in sentiment. The closed-off narrative tends to isolate however as he focuses instead on the abstract, as with a chapter on hatred, and on the crimes of humanity down through the ages. These lengthy theories are at times weighed down with academic language and an undertone of bitterness as the personal nevertheless seeps into the discussions on general and historical concerns.
Vintage Books, £8.99
SARAH GILMARTIN
