Review: The French Father

As the weeks go on, they discuss their childhoods - two very different experiences of France under the shadow of the Nazis - and their contrasting approaches to family, religion and love.

More than anything, the book is about Elkann's feelings towards his father; Topor is the catalyst for the son to come to terms with the loss of a man whom he never quite "had" in the first place. It's a strange concept and it is often unclear where the line between the real and the imagined is drawn but, oddly, it works, both as a biography of two interesting characters, and as a wider consideration of family legacy and bereavement.

Elkann's writing is dry and well-observed. He brings a humour to a subject where laughter remains taboo, from the way his father had meticulously planned his own funeral to Topor's dismay that he is not buried next to "a beautiful, fascinating woman".

Translated from the Italian into sometimes clunky English, it is nonetheless a delightful book, bite-size at a little more than 100 pages and unlike anything else I've ever read.

Jennifer Lipman is a JC reporter