Sara Wheeler

Jonathan Raban’s last hurrah

Aged 69, the travel writer had a stroke and spent his last 20 years as a hemiplegic – and writing this memoir of his father’s life intertwined with snapshots of his own

Jonathan Raban in downtown Seattle in the 1990s. [Getty]

  • Father and Son: A Memoir About Family, the Past and Mortality

    Jonathan Raban

    Picador, pp. 332, £22

Already a subscriber? Log in

This article is for subscribers only

Get a free bottle of Johnnie Walker Black Label when you subscribe to The Spectator for just £12 in our Black Friday sale

  • Free bottle of Johnnie Walker Black Label whisky, worth £30
  • Unlimited access to our website and app
  • Enjoy Spectator newsletters and podcasts
  • Explore our online archive, going back to 1828

Read next

Trending

Lionel Shriver

The true meaning of free speech

From the magazine
Right after Donald Trump’s landslide, I opined on YouTube that this turning point could sound the death knell for Woke World – an observation that decayed to hoary cliché within hours. I also supposed that Trump’s triumph might signal to the UK that all that diversity, equality and inclusion/systemic racism guff is totally yesterday –

More on edmund gosse

Also by Sara Wheeler

Latest

Comments

Black Friday sale: Get 10 weeks for just $1

Unlimited access to the The Spectator, online and via the app

Already a subscriber? Log in