‘Funny, poignant, smart and wonderfully, achingly real’ SARAH WATERS
‘I can’t think of another author who can make me ricochet so quickly from painful empathy to helpless laughter’ ERIN KELLY
From the Polari Prize-winning author of IN AT THE DEEP END
When Lena buys DNA testing kits for her father Tom and her twin sister Alison, she thinks they’ll enjoy finding out where their ancestors come from, and what percentage Neanderthal they are. She has no idea the gift will blow her family apart.
Tom is forced to admit that he isn’t his daughters’ biological father: he and his late wife, Sheila, used a sperm donor. He’s terrified Lena and Alison will reject him, and desperate to win back their trust – whatever it takes.
Alison thinks DNA doesn’t matter. She and her wife are trying to start a family using donor sperm, too. To her, Tom is their dad, and that’s that.
But Lena becomes obsessed with tracking down their biological father. And when she discovers she has a half-brother – an actor with a blue tick on Instagram – she becomes obsessed with him, too…
From the author of the Polari Prize-winning In at the Deep End, this is a very funny and deeply moving novel about identity, donor conception and what it means to be a family.
Book Info: Print length: 432 pages. Publisher: The Borough Press. Publication Date: 15 Feb 2024
My Thoughts:
If you follow my blog, you might have seen my review for Kate Davies’ debut novel IN AT THE DEEP END, which I absolutely LOVED, so I was really excited to read the authors latest book which was published in February this year.
I knew as soon as I opened the book and the Epigraph was Philip Larkin’s This Be The Verse “They f*ck you up, your mum and dad…” and when I saw some of the chapter names included “Self-Flagellating Bollocks”, “F*ck F*ck F*ck F*ck F*ck” and “Bugger Off” that I would enjoy this story.
Nuclear Family is set in North London and follows twins Alison and Lena and their father Tom. The girls mother had suddenly and unexpectedly passed away and the family are still in the midst of grief. To brighten up their first family Christmas without mum, Lena thinks it would be a great idea to buy them all a DNA testing kit, except Tom’s reaction has devastating results when he announces the twins were conceived via a sperm donor and their parents had kept this secret for their entire lives.
This shock revelation literally splits the family in two. Lena, who is married and currently trying for a child of her own is devastated and needs to know who her biological father is, however Alison and her wife who are also trying for a baby using donor sperm has absolutely zero interest in anything to do with the DNA results.
The story brings up so many emotions and the twins reactions to this news are polar opposite but the reader does sympathise with both sides, although I did find Lena’s obsession a little harder to believe.
Nuclear Family takes a long hard and raw look at IVF and infertility struggles and doesn’t sugar coat the devastating effects it has on the family when things don’t go as planned.
There were many times throughout the book I questioned how I would feel if I was in their situation and would I behave like Lena or Alison?
Overall, I think this would make a brilliant book for a book club discussion as there are so many elements within the story including identity, nature vs nuture and what it really means to be a family.
