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BBC Radio 4 LW

Book of the Week

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Serialised book readings, featuring works from various genres

Serialised book readings, featuring works of non-fiction, biography, autobiography, travel, diaries, essays, humour and history

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Book of the Week: Fathers and Sons

James Lailey

Howard Cunnell

Jill Waters

Book of the Week: Fathers and Sons: Episode 5

Fathers and Sons

Episode 5

BBC Radio 4 - Book of the Week, Fathers and Sons, Episode 5

Having negotiated the choppy waters of family life, there is now another journey afoot.

Jay is planning a trip, but has already come so far and on such a tortuous journey, that no distance could be as challenging. Family life is rich and wonderful in all its shades.

As a boy growing up on the south coast of England, Howard Cunnell's sense of self was dominated by his father's absence. Now, years later, he is a father, and his daughter is becoming his son.

Starting with his own childhood in the Sussex beachlands, Howard tells the story of the years of self-destruction that defined his young adulthood and the escape he found in reading and the natural world. Still, he felt compelled to destroy the relationships that mattered to him.

Saved by love and responsibility, Cunnell charts his journey from anger to compassion, as his daughter Jay realises he is a boy, and a son.

Most of all, this is a story about love - its necessity and fragility, and its unequalled capacity to enable us to be who we are.

Deeply thoughtful, searingly honest and exquisitely lyrical, Fathers and Sons is an exploration of fatherhood, masculinity, authenticity and family.

Written by Howard Cunnell
Read by James Lailey
Abridged and produced by Jill Waters
A Waters Company production for BBC Radio 4.

BBC Radio 4

Intelligent speech, the most insightful journalism, the wittiest comedy, the most fascinating features and the most compelling drama and readings anywhere in UK radio.

A fatherless man tries to be a father to his daughter, who is now becoming his son.

Howard Cunnell's story of a fatherless man, trying to be a father to his daughter, who is now becoming his son. Read by James Lailey. Abridged by Jill Waters.

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