Summarize this content to 2000 words in 6 paragraphs in Arabic Unlock the Editor’s Digest for freeRoula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.In an age where public appetite for private detail shows no sign of abating, actors taking up the pen might understandably deliver a straightforward memoir. But Sonya Walger, best known for starring in the hit American TV show Lost, has opted to weave a complex story of memory, lies and parenthood in the form of a debut novel.Walger plays with the idea that the self we present to others is as much a creation as any fiction. Lion’s protagonist is also an actor called Sonya, whose life is divided between managing a young family during the pandemic and being away on jobs. While autobiographical elements of Walger’s life are scattered throughout — “I am offered a job on a tropical island. It will take years to film” — Lion’s real autofictional intrigue lies in the narrative refractions of its primary subject; a comment on the malleability of remembering and perception. What begins with an apologia for writing primarily about an absent father becomes a cinematic drift where stories and personas are made up in the name of love. ‘Se cayó’ — he fell — Sonya tells her stepsister, a simple phrase nevertheless containing the entirety of a lifeLion refers to the protagonist’s dashing Argentine father, a magnet for risk and romance. We first encounter him in Kinshasa, about to flee a currency deal gone wrong, then Madrid, where he falls in love with Sonya’s English mother. This introduction is a foreshadowing. The lion gambles on what might be, “leaping into the unknown . . . and waiting for the consequences to catch up with him later”, often adjusting the truth in the process. He is by turns racing driver, polo player, futures trader and skydiver, divorces and remarriages trailing the wreckage of his good intentions. Women must survive him, and daughters are “littered behind him like a careless man might leave expensive raincoats”.Told through Sonya’s memories and her perspective of her parents, there is a sense of detachment to Lion’s narrative. Cutting back and forth in time and across various countries, she appears to be viewing these lives, including her own, as one would a film or play. A thought repeated by her mother and father, “[n]ow, now is when my life begins”, is echoed by Sonya: “I am ready for my life to begin.” Like a call for a fresh take, it heralds the hopeful anticipation of new chances, but its ghost also haunts each new disappointment brought about by her father.Linguistic repetition serves to emphasise Sonya’s lack of a normal family structure and her difficulty in telling its story, whose paternal centre is unreliable in every way. What could be seen as an intrusive stylistic choice instead allows its characters an unselfconscious fragility and space for reflection. As Lion’s narrator, Sonya represents an unwavering truth, the opposite of her father’s fugitive choices which upset the lives of the family. Plunged into the intricate depths of familial turmoil with her as Virgilian guide, there is an emotional stillness in bearing witness to these moments. The climax recalls WH Auden’s poem about Bruegel’s painting of Icarus: a man needing to fly close to the sun while the seemingly unremarkable lives below go on regardless of such follies. “Se cayó” — he fell — Sonya tells her stepsister, a simple phrase nevertheless containing the entirety of a life. Lion is a poignant story of heaven and earth; a godlike man unable to fully be a father, and his grounded daughter, who despite everything continues to look up at the sky with love. Lion by Sonya Walger New York Review of Books £12.93/$15.95, 176 pagesJoin our online book group on Facebook at FT Books Café and follow FT Weekend on Instagram and X
