The Hypocrite
Jo Hamya
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Reading The Hypocrite is like downing fizzy water on a hot day - sharp, acerbic, and thirst quenching. Summer 2010, a father, an imperious middle-aged novelist, and his young daughter, Sophia, holiday on an Aeolian island. August 2020, Sophia awaits her father's reaction to her play that takes their Italian sojourn together as its subject. Hamya sharply pulls at diverging memories and teases out familial pain. A slick and merciless read.
What happens when we stop idolising the generations above us? Stop idolising our own parents?
What happens when we become frightened of the generations below us? Frightened of our own children?
The Aeolian islands, 2010. Sophia, on the cusp of adulthood, spends a long hot summer with her father in Sicily. There she falls in love for the first time. There she works as her father's amanuensis, typing the novel he dictates, a story about sex and gender divides. There, their relationship fractures.
London, Summer 2020. Sophia's father, a 61-year-old novelist who does not feel himself to be a bad or outdated person sits in a large theatre, surrounded by strangers, watching his daughter's first play. A play that takes that Sicilian holiday is its subject. A play that will force him to watch his purported crimes play out in front of him.
