"Maybe leaving something you care about in a place you don’t want to leave is a way of staying connected to that place—of hoping to get back there."

Set in the shimmering summer heat of 1983, this is a story of a father and a son's emotional journey and the accompanying external adventures over two sleepless days and nights in the coastal city of Marseille, southern France.

For years, Antonio has lived on borrowed time: in the garb of a seemingly normal 18 yr old teenage Italian boy doing what any normal 18 yr old teenage Italian boy would do - but under this guise is the well-kept secret & deep-rooted shame of being an epileptic. Growing up, his parents, especially his mother had drilled into him this idea of the public shame attached to being diagnosed with a mental illness. Life passed quite monotonously for Antonio for 3 years. When he turned 18 it was time to make the dreaded visit back to Marseille when the famed epilepsy specialist Dr Gastaut will, for once and for all, decide the course of Antonio's future: whether he will live the life of a normal young man or have an existence ridden with shame, exclusion & limitations.

In an unexpected turn of events, Antonio and his estranged father, a brilliant mathematics professor must while away two days completely awake in Marseille. Navigating this unprecedented situation, they discover truths and engage in conversations they never had on subjects like love, being broken-hearted, ambition, passion, hobbies, dashed dreams, poetry, sex, their parent's relationship, his father's childhood - trying to fill the void left between the father-son after his parent's separation. Antonio, having resented his father for years since he left his mother and him, arrives at a new perspective, having shed his earlier prejudices about his father. (Balikswas) Being ill-equipped to share their emotions and to be honest with each other, initially both father and son are discomfited. However, as night gives way to dawn, Antonio gradually connects with his father through the common language of jazz, poetry, books, music and mathematics. 

Lately, I have taken to these small, everyday narratives, feeling that longer novels are not suited to my low attention span when the summer heat is raging and it's acutely difficult to concentrate. This novel was a welcome escape and distraction. It took me right to the colourful cafes and obscure late-night pubs of Marseille where Jazz fills the nondescript location in a hazy dream, to the grand old church of Notre dam de la Garde and the infamous Château d'If prison where the opening of 'The Count of Monte Cristo' takes place and to witness beautiful sunsets on isolated beaches by the Calanques & chance encounters with strangers. To put it simply- reading this book felt like being on a vacation by a dreamy beach, reading a good book and having daydreams.