Lion by Sonya Walger

DESCRIPTION

An engrossing work of autobiographical fiction about the relationship between an actress daughter and her larger-than-life father—the astonishingly assured debut novel of Sonya Walger, actress on Lost, For All Mankind, and more.

Lion is the story of a father and a daughter. The father is the unlikeliest of fathers. He is a charismatic bon vivant, a polo player, race-car driver, cocaine addict, ex-con, pilot, and skydiver. He is like a minor god who comes down to earth in a grand manner, falling in all the ways there are to fall. Lion moves back and forth between present-day Los Angeles, where the daughter lives and works as an actress, and the past of her peripatetic childhood in England, Argentina, and Peru. "It is hard to compete with adrenalin when you are a child," she writes, now a mother herself to young children whose settled upbringing prompts her to consider her unconventional youth and the source of its chaos.

Sonya Walger's stunning autobiographical debut is an emotionally acute palimpsest of a novel, full of drama and incident, love and tragedy. The legend of the father's life and her distinctive and imaginatively charged telling of it make for an engrossing and unforgettable family saga.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

SONYA WALGER began her career as a film and television actress in 1998. Known for her roles on television shows such as Lost and For All Mankind, she studied English literature at Christ Church, Oxford, and is the host of the literature podcast Bookish.

PRAISE

"A breathtaking novel, dreamlike and courageous, brimming with glamour and disastrous scarcities." — Susie Boyt

"Actor Walger debuts with a piercing autobiographical novel about a woman’s relationship with her charismatic but neglectful father... the dual themes of shame and overwhelming love are beautifully expressed, and the portrait of the father’s tragic arc is at once sweeping and precise... It’s a revelation." — Publishers Weekly

“No parent is perfect; that’s a condition of being a human. The accomplishment of Sonya Walger’s novel is in seeking to understand a charmingly imperfect dad—charismatic but chaotic, doting when he’s not distracted—rather than condemn him. Lion is a beautifully written and ultimately deeply moving book, a powerful debut.’ — Rumaan Alam

“Lion by Sonya Walger is everything a reader could want. It's personal and vast at once: profound and fun, deft linguistically and psychologically. Best of all, there's that sprinkling of magic you get only in the rarest novels.” — Darin Strauss

DETAILS

Paperback | 176 pages