Cronus' children

Yves Navarre, Howard Girven

The novel focuses on the Prouillan family and their acquaintances, who are unable to escape the influence of the father, Henri. They share a common guilt regarding the lobotomy that the youngest brother, Bertrand, was given in an attempt to rid him of his homosexuality. The operation instead leaves an imaginative, academically successful young man a cripple, ostensibly put out of sight and out of mind when taken from Paris to the familyâ₌s country residence. The day of Bertrandâ₌s fortieth birthday is also the twentieth anniversary of the return from his disastrous operation, the crucial moment in which his siblings, horrified by their fatherâ₌s actions and guilt-ridden by their previous unwitting complicity, left the family house in Paris for good. Over the course of this day and the following morning, every one touched by that eventâ₌the father, children, old servant, their aunt, and the family who care for Bertrandâ₌becomes the centre of focus. Far-flung and in vastly different circumstances, the upsets that occur to each of them on this fateful anniversary lead them to meditate on past and present, revealing the different layers of these characters and their very human weaknesses and emotions.