They\u2019re an unlikely duo. Jada is a\u00a0petty criminal who lives hand to mouth in a cramped 60s tower block and can\u2019t remember how many children he has. Dan is a TV producer with a Tesla outside his mansion and who \u2013 after five years of\u00a0trying and six\u00a0rounds of IVF \u2013 is\u00a0about to meet his\u00a0first child.<\/p>\n
The pair encounter each other outside the sliding doors of Glasgow\u2019s Queen Elizabeth University hospital, where Dan takes sips of cold air while he comes to terms with the wonder and terror of first-time parenthood and\u00a0Jada sneaks a quick fag. Dan examines Jada\u2019s vigilant eyes and seasonally inappropriate sportswear; Jada clocks Dan\u2019s Rolex and works out how quickly he could take him in a fight. They bump into each other again in the lift a few days later, laying the seeds for a relationship that will reveal what divides them and what they share, building to a climax of kinship and betrayal.<\/p>\n
Since leaving his job as an A&R manager in 2002, John Niven has written novels and screenplays that mix industry satire (pop, publishing, film) with sometimes eye-popping hedonism; presumably both will feature in his next project, a 2026 play about Blur and Oasis called The Battle<\/a>. Yet while there\u2019s a fair bit of hard living in The Fathers, Niven\u2019s latest also shows his softer side, as the two\u00a0fortysomething Glaswegian protagonists manage domesticity. Dan\u00a0obsessively childproofs his house, buying expensive baby accessories and doing his best to be the perfect dad to Tom, while Jada tries to be more present with his girlfriend Nicola and new son Jayden than he has been for his other children \u2013 for which read \u201cnot very\u201d.<\/p>\n For all Dan\u2019s efforts, the mums take on the greatest share of child rearing, giving the dads space to transform their careers. Dan, bored with his wildly popular TV series McCallister (think Taggart meets Hamish MacBeth), aims to kill off the main character and write a novel. Jada, meanwhile, has a contact at Prestwick airport who can siphon off military surplus meant for Ukraine \u2013 a gig he thinks could set him up for life.<\/p>\n Classic Scottish literary themes of duality, sentiment and booze are rarely far from the surface<\/p>\n Classic Scottish literary themes of duality, sentiment and booze are rarely far from the surface, most of them viewed through the prism of class. In the hospital, Dan\u2019s wife, Grace,\u00a0has a private room and a smoothie that \u201ccost more than wine and tasted like cut grass\u201d. On Nicola\u2019s bedside are a pack of cigarettes, a giant Toblerone and a bottle of Irn-Bru. In the months that come, Jayden\u2019s sippy cup is filled with the fizzy nectar, while Nicola and Jada enjoy the occasional blow-out with beer from \u201cPriceBeaster\u201d, plus ecstasy and heroin. Down the road, the West End\u2019s gentrified stretches do a steady trade in \u201cmacchiatos, pastel de natas and designer knitwear\u201d.<\/p>\n There\u2019s plenty of inequality, hypocrisy and self-destruction on show, but Niven is also here for the laughs in a book that is sometimes very funny, but also happy to lean into\u00a0cliche. You yearn to hear from someone who\u2019s neither an upper-middle-class twit nor a feckless chancer, or to hear a man articulate his feelings without the spurs of alcohol or desperation. Yet Niven never forgets his characters\u2019 humanity, and there\u2019s some fine detail on the way, whether comic (brushing a baby\u2019s teeth is like trying to \u201cdraw a moustache on a live eel with a felt-tip pen\u201d) or poetic (in a\u00a0brighter moment, Nicola marvels at the city, \u201caw golden and peach and the river was dead flat and calm and there wiznae a soul around\u201d).<\/p>\n As The Fathers gets going, Niven tightens his narrative like a noose. By\u00a0a\u00a0third of the way in, the book is veering between unputdownable and put-it-down-quick-before-something-bad-happens. Jada\u2019s airport connection unearths a crate of pistols, which he aims to sell to a Northern Irish terrorist group, while Dan suffers a shocking disaster that flings him out of his herringbone-floored home into Jada\u2019s world of dodgy deals, sporadic violence and daytime pints.<\/p>\n The result is a comic melodrama that\u2019s never dull, and a satire that hits most of its targets. After the darkness Niven lets in, the ending feels a touch glib, but the slow comradeship that grows between the two leads is charming nonetheless. The Fathers is\u00a0a fine choice for anyone who likes a\u00a0little grit in their holiday read.<\/p>\n skip past newsletter promotion<\/a><\/p>\n Discover new books and learn more about your favourite authors with our expert reviews, interviews and news stories. Literary delights delivered direct to you<\/p>\n Privacy Notice: Newsletters may contain info about charities, online ads, and content funded by outside parties. For more information see our Privacy Policy<\/a>. We use Google reCaptcha to protect our website and the Google Privacy Policy<\/a> and Terms of Service<\/a> apply.<\/p>\n after newsletter promotion<\/p>\n