On his twelfth birthday Karl receives a book of blank pages, which he proceeds to fill, day by day, throughout his life. But after his death the book disappears before his son, as tradition dictates, has had the chance to read it. So the son, as first-person narrator, retells the story: My Father's Book. This is the record of a rich existence, characterised by its love for life and passion for books. The fathers ability to inspire both himself and others is perhaps his most wonderful trait. Inwardly he lives in the world of Villon, Diderot and Stendhal whose work, along with that of many others, he translates while outwardly he feels himself drawn to of a group of young artists, all with distinct styles, but united in their burning antifascist beliefs. It comes as no surprise that he too, during a legendary carnival in 1936, becomes a communist. On his death in 1965, however, this allegiance is but a distant memory. My Father's Book is, inter alia, the story of the political aspirations and disappointments of the twentieth century. Of course, the book also tells the story of Clara, the woman he loves, the central figure in the novel My Mother's Lover. The same story, recounted from a startlingly new perspective.