The Good Father - Noah Hawley

Goodreads Synopsis

An intense, psychological novel about one doctor's suspense-filled quest to unlock the mind of a suspected political assassin: his twenty-year old son.
 
As the Chief of Rheumatology at Columbia Presbyterian, Dr. Paul Allen's specialty is diagnosing patients with conflicting symptoms, patients other doctors have given up on. He lives a contented life in Westport with his second wife and their twin sons—hard won after a failed marriage earlier in his career that produced a son named Daniel. In the harrowing opening scene of this provocative and affecting novel, Dr. Allen is home with his family when a televised news report announces that the Democratic candidate for president has been shot at a rally, and Daniel is caught on video as the assassin.  
     
Daniel Allen has always been a good kid—a decent student, popular—but, as a child of divorce, used to shuttling back and forth between parents, he is also something of a drifter. Which may be why, at the age of nineteen, he quietly drops out of Vassar and begins an aimless journey across the United States, during which he sheds his former skin and eventually even changes his name to Carter Allen Cash.
     
Told alternately from the point of view of the guilt-ridden, determined father and his meandering, ruminative son, The Good Father is a powerfully emotional page-turner that keeps one guessing until the very end. This is an absorbing and honest novel about the responsibilities—and limitations—of being a parent and our capacity to provide our children with unconditional love in the face of an unthinkable situation.

Review

This book really gets you thinking about essentially what would make someone bad. The narrator of this story is the father of Daniel, he is accused of killing a Senator. The story is the fathers struggle to find out exactly what happened to Daniel in the months leading up to the shooting and actually whether he did it or not. Snippits of the novel are told in the third person in order for us to see exactly what Daniel was doing throughout these months as both himself as his alias Carter Allen Cash.

I really enjoyed this book and it is nothing like anything I have ever read before. It is more than anything about recognition of blame and acceptance. The character of Daniel is perhaps the hardest to decide whether you like his character or not, you know of the accusations of guilt before the book dives into his past. As a reader, listening to a father’s love of his son, I presumed from at the start that Daniel was innocent, I’m not sure whether this was because his father was trying to presume his innocence or as a reader you want a happy ending. In a way I think Hawley wants you to think this to start with and then takes you on a rollercoaster ride of is he? Or isn’t he? I changed my opinion multiple times throughout the novels events. Whether he is guilty or not? Well you’ll have to discover that for yourself.

I really enjoyed how Hawley used the assassinations of other people and explained them in great detail. Some of the minor ones I hadn’t really heard of and did find myself looking them up on the internet to check it wasn’t fictional. These bits intrigued me as to what the people’s lives were like before they assassinated someone, the father tries to map these men onto his son and see if there are any similar traits.

The narrator is clearly desperate, you see the pattern of his life become fixed upon his son. Each large chapter is entitled Home, Iowa, Carter Allen Cash and finally the epilogue Boy. These represent what is revealed to the reader in more detail. Boy is particular becomes the point of true realisation mirrored with the innocence of Boyhood. I really enjoyed the imagery in this book, towards the end Hawley focuses a lot on imagery of wolves, I remember one in particular that stuck in my mind as comparing an event to a mad uncle.

At the end I felt a little exhausted, but in a good way. I think Hawley has captured the emotions of ‘the Good Father’ perfectly so at the end I feel I felt as he would feel. It takes real skill to capture emotion to that capacity, is the end happy? Who knows really, its one of those books where you feel satisfied at its end rather than accumulating it to be happy or sad. It is the same feeling I get when I get to the end of a Picoult novel. This was a very hard book to write a review about to contextualise how it made me feel without revealing why it made me feel this way. So for the most part, you’ll just have to trust me J

Overall , well worth a read!

Thank you to Hodder for sending me this book to review :-)