Jona

Then the story takes a very surprising turn as a family secret is revealed, which has an unexpectedly dramatic impact on Jona’s life. Van Praag skilfully builds up the tension, almost as if in a thriller. Even after the big reveal, you want to go on reading so that you can find out exactly how everything fits together. The backdrop to this is the tension surrounding Jona and his father, chillingly presented in the book’s prologue: during an argument, the five-year-old Jona’s mum runs out of the house without looking where she’s going and is knocked down and killed by a car. The father then hisses at his little boy: ‘Your fault.’

The complicated relationship between the loyal, somewhat anxious Jona and his strict father forms the hammering heart of this novel. Van Praag describes Pa’s complex personality and Jona’s emotional dependence on him in an intense yet nuanced way. You can tell that the father loves his son and maybe even couldn’t cope without him, but at the same time he controls him, isolating him and manipulating his emotions. Van Praag suggests that this behaviour is rooted in an intergenerational Holocaust drama, the family secret and the loss of his wife.

Jona’s emotions are ambivalent. Sometimes he feels close to his father, for example when they’re performing religious rituals together, but he also feels hemmed in and belittled. The courtyard where they live strikingly illustrates this dichotomy: cosy or claustrophobic? As the research for the project continues, Jona slowly detaches himself from his father, finally finds out more about his mother, and makes friends with Elin and Lucas, from whose perspectives we sometimes see events. Van Praag has written a gripping book about family relationships and the impact of secrets and memories on a teenager’s life.

Age: 14+