Daddy Issues

I receive the news of my father’s grave illness with almost complete indifference. I’m finding it mildly annoying, like road construction… He called me just briefly; he doesn’t want to

bother me too much. I’m at work right now. I hang up. I’m furious at my father’s potentially terminal illness. I work at the reception desk of an okay hotel… My job is not demanding—often it’s boring, but it keeps my curiosity alive. I especially like working the evening shifts and figuring out who is sleeping with whom. At night, I get to read a lot. Secretly, I write poetry.

Thus begins Daddy Issues, Dino Pešut’s novel about the generation born in 1990s Croatia. These young adults are sensitive, well-educated, and, for the most part, worse off than their parents, with little perspective aside from emigration. This heartwarming story of familial dysfunction tackles head-on the challenges of friendship, independence, sex and sexuality, mortality, and class. Pešut’s second novel confirms him as a powerful voice of his generation, an author who perfectly captures the moment he lives in, and Vladislav Beronja’s translation brings it to life in English with empathy and humor.

My father has been reaching out to me more and more frequently in the last couple of years… Each missed call would leave me with a small pang of guilt. The same remorse I feel now because I can’t seem to call him and ask how he’s doing. I’m a bad son of a bad father.