Ask Your Dad

The final novel of acclaimed Czech fiction writer Jan Balabán.Ask Your Dad centers on what Christian tradition calls “the last things.” Three siblings struggle to come to terms with the death of their father, the doctor Jan Nedoma, while also confronting a posthumous accusation made by his best friend, who accuses Nedoma of having collaborated with communist authorities. The bitter irony at the heart of the novel is that it is no longer possible for the siblings to ask their father what really happened. Questions of meaning, moral integrity, and the consequences of human actions permeate the meditative novel and are rendered with a harrowing directness. Poignantly, the novel was published posthumously.