Son is so enchanting I didn’t want it to end, and when I finished it no other book would fill the space. The irony is, I didn’t want to read the novel, thinking it might be too sad for me, and could easily have missed the book of the year.

Part fiction and part faction, Sonnekus writes about his father in a manner that is achingly tender and all too human: his dad, nicknamed ‘Son’, is an old man with very old-fashioned values.

Len, a sexually and politically liberated journalist, travels from JoBurg to Centurion every week to visit his father, and over weak coffee and Lemon Creams, these two very different men try to understand each other: they are united by love, but not much else.

Newsrooms, white guilt – Len’s inhibited relationship with his char Ms Motsepe certainly resonated with me – sexual malfunction, addictions, and dogs: Sonnekus shows middle age is not for sissies.

Son is a bit of a saint, and Len is a bit of a scoundrel, and the story is a delightfully witty and frank examination not only of an adult child-parent relationship, but also of the issues that beset and perplexed many ‘previously advantaged’ but well-meaning white South Africans in the ‘Noughties’. ( )