Census

Description

• A captivating novel by visionary young American author Jesse Ball about a father-and-son journey, inspired by Ball’s late brother, who had Down syndrome • Ball felt compelled to write about his brother, Abram, who was 24 when he died in 1998. In the prologue he writes: ‘I felt, and feel, that people with Down syndrome are not really understood. What is in my heart when I consider him and his life is something so tremendous, so full of light, that I thought I must write a book that helps people to see what it is like to know and love a Down syndrome boy or girl. It is not like what you would expect, and it is not like it is ordinarily portrayed and explained.’ • In Census, when a widower learns that he doesn’t have long to live, he is struck by the question of who will care for his adult son—a boy with Down syndrome. The widower signs up as a census taker for an unnamed government bureau, and he and his son leave town. • Text is interwoven with real photographs of Abram Ball throughout his childhood • The result is not only a precious homage to the author’s brother, but a captivating and emotionally generous novel • Jesse Ball is the sublimely gifted author of six other novels, including A Cure for Suicide and How to Set A Fire and Why. He gives classes on lucid dreaming and lying at the Art Institute of Chicago • Will appeal to fans of Kazuo Ishiguro, Italo Calvino, W. G. Sebald and Franz Kafka