One of the aspects of this novel that stuck out for me (besides the dead bodies, bombs, sex, and the illustration style) was the relationship (or lack thereof) that Koby has with his father, Gabriel. Because the novel focuses on Koby, we are initially left to hear how much Koby resents his father– he doesn’t listen, we was never there, he’s a jerk, etc. At this point, readers might be left rolling their eyes, thinking that it’s going to be another novel about coping with daddy issues and moving on.
As Gabriel’s disappearance becomes more involved, however, we see that Koby’s version of events is unreliable and that he can only tell half of the story. When he talks about his bar mitzvah, for example, he is angry that his father arrived halfway through the ceremony– which is a valid response. As he reads from the Torah, Gabriel began to cry and Koby, rather than feeling touched or proud, wants to die of embarrassment and calls his father a jerk (58-59). And when Gabriel took the time to get him a shirt signed by a professional soccer team, Koby whines that it’s not the right team (he describes them as “worse than Satan”) and that his father doesn’t listen to him (79-80).While Gabriel might not have been the most perceptive father, Koby wasn’t exactly the best son either. The novel may start off depicting Gabriel as a distant father, contributions from other characters finish the picture and reveal that their relationship was based on misunderstanding and not neglect or hatrid. Although Koby blames Gabriel for their miserable relationship, he only exacerbated the problem by not trying to understand his father’s actions.