The Haunting of Identity: A Craft Analysis of Fathers and Fugitives

Nov 1

What does it mean for a story to feel haunted—not by ghosts of people long gone, but by fractured selves, by identities that refuse to settle, and by the corrosive aftermath of history? Fathers and Fugitives by SJ Naudé thrusts us into such a landscape, both unsettling and evocative. For writers seeking to explore the unsettling and ambiguous, this novel offers rich lessons in craft, embracing narrative dislocation, fragmented intimacy, and the entropic forces that shape our understanding of home, belonging, and family.

Fathers and Fugitives follows Daniel, a cosmopolitan journalist who drifts between cities and relationships, unable to find a true sense of belonging. He encounters two Serbian immigrants, Oliver and Yugo, whose story of escape from homophobic persecution draws him into an uneasy friendship. The novel moves through different sections of Daniel's life, exploring his fractured relationship with his father, his entanglement with Theon and the South African farm they shared in childhood, and the burdens of caregiving. The narrative itself is fragmented, creating a mosaic of disjointed connections and ghostly memories that leave a haunting impression.

Naudé’s approach to storytelling resists traditional structures, creating a narrative that challenges both the writer and the reader. Through careful deconstruction of scenes, character arcs, and the nuanced way Naudé crafts tension and connection, we can extract insights into how this complex narrative architecture is built and sustained. Below, I explore how these techniques can deepen our own craft.

“Where Wolves Mate”: Building narrative tension through ambiguity

The first section of the novel, “Where Wolves Mate,” introduces a tension-laden encounter that artfully oscillates between connection and discomfort. From the moment Daniel meets Oliver and Yugo, the dynamic is charged with an unsettling intimacy—both physical and psychological. The fact that this tension never resolves in a conventional sense provides the first craft takeaway: allowing scenes to end unresolved invites the reader into the disquiet of your characters.

Naudé achieves this through specific techniques that revolve around dialogue, body language, and deliberate opacity in character motivation. Oliver’s flamboyant critique of the Agnes Martin paintings and his subsequent interactions are disorienting to Daniel—and the reader. There is no clear answer as to whether Oliver and Yugo are antagonists or potential allies. Writers can apply this ambiguity in their own work by not rushing to clarify relationships too early. Instead, focus on contrasts—between personalities, between characters’ internal worlds, and between expectation and action. Here, Daniel’s need for solitude and the Serbs’ bold imposition create a rich dissonance.

The narrative resists the simple binaries of friend versus foe, instead blurring lines that often make the reader just as vulnerable as Daniel himself. This ambiguity is further accentuated by the way Naudé interweaves moments of empathy with hints of threat. The oscillation between emotional vulnerability and the potential for danger keeps the reader in a constant state of unease, mirroring Daniel’s own experience. This provides a powerful narrative tension that writers can use to create layered and multifaceted relationships.

Using physicality to heighten psychological tension

The nuanced use of body language, such as Yugo pressing his knee against Daniel’s or undressing Daniel while remaining fully clothed himself, underscores an imbalance of power. The scene is not overtly violent, but it thrums with a power dynamic that is clearly asymmetrical. Naudé’s lesson for writers here is to let physical proximity complicate rather than resolve emotional tension. By presenting intimacy without comfort, Naudé allows the reader to dwell in Daniel’s vulnerability and his instinctive distrust.

This approach to physicality can be effective when developing character relationships that are deliberately precarious. Instead of relying on dialogue to reveal characters’ connections, try using their bodies—their movement, their stillness, their distance or closeness—to reveal the fractures and unease that define those relationships. The intimacy of discomfort is a recurring motif throughout the novel, and it is often the physical interactions, rather than the spoken exchanges, that reveal the true nature of these complex connections.

Writers can take inspiration from Naudé’s choice to let discomfort simmer without resolution. When characters touch but do not connect, or when closeness only exacerbates unease, it underscores the paradoxical nature of intimacy. There is a subtle suggestion that Daniel’s yearning for connection is intertwined with his fear of it—creating a complex, layered portrayal of human vulnerability.

“Lost in Malaysia”: Narrative fracture and the power of silence

The "Lost in Malaysia" section gives us Daniel’s attempt to care for his ailing father, unfolding in an atmosphere soaked with ambiguity and dissolution. The narrative structure here emphasizes fracture and incompleteness, mirroring the cognitive decline of Daniel’s father. The takeaway for writers is embracing narrative fragmentation to reflect a character’s disorientation.

Naudé’s refusal to tie scenes neatly together captures the gradual erosion of Daniel’s father’s identity, but it also reflects Daniel’s emotional disarray. Memories surface and are lost, and dialogue dissolves into stilted exchanges that never fully bridge the chasm between father and son. Writers often strive for cohesion, but here, Naudé shows us the power of fragmentation: moments that fade away, sentences that begin but never end, and memories that dissolve into nothingness. To convey the disorientation of a fragmented mind or fractured relationship, embrace incomplete arcs—let things drift apart instead of always pulling them together.

The structure of this section echoes the decaying relationship at its core, with scenes often cut short, unfinished thoughts, and actions without clear consequences. For writers, this suggests that narrative cohesion is not always necessary—sometimes, allowing a story to break apart can more accurately mirror the lived experiences of disconnection and loss. The challenge is to lean into that fragmentation without losing the thread of the emotional core that holds the character's experience together.

The weight of the unspoken

Another craft observation lies in Naudé’s use of silence. In Lost in Malaysia, Daniel’s storytelling efforts, whether recalling past lovers or mundane daily details, are often left hanging—unanswered and unacknowledged. There is something incredibly potent in this choice: silence as an acknowledgment of futility. The lack of response from Daniel’s father communicates the emotional gulf between them more profoundly than any dialogue could. Writers can draw on this by allowing silence or non-response to play a key role in conversations, especially in relationships characterized by distance, misunderstanding, or fading connections.

The power of the unspoken lies in its ability to suggest rather than tell. Daniel's father, whose silence signifies more than words ever could, becomes emblematic of all the relationships Daniel is unable to fully reconcile. As writers, we can use silence to deepen emotional impact—sometimes the absence of words reveals more than dialogue ever could. The emptiness, the inability to respond, and the incomplete exchanges all point to the deeper human experience of disconnection.

“Hankai”: Conditional relationships and incomplete arcs

The section "Hankai" offers an exploration of conditionality—conditional love, conditional inheritance, and conditional connections. The arc between Daniel and Theon serves as an examination of how relationships forged in family bonds can remain half-built, never fully reclaimed. The craft insight here is in embracing the incomplete—in writing relationships that are not reconciled, and in resisting the urge to provide narrative closure.

Theon’s invitation to Daniel to revisit the farm symbolizes an attempt to connect, but even this remains ambiguous and incomplete. Naudé demonstrates that the resonance of an invitation does not lie in its acceptance, but in its offering. Writers can use this to craft character arcs that are filled with gestures rather than outcomes—moments of reaching out that do not necessarily conclude in connection but linger as unfinished, haunting traces.

The sense of unfinished business between Daniel and Theon is a crucial element of this section. Even though Theon reaches out to Daniel, the narrative does not give us the satisfaction of knowing whether this connection will be fully repaired. Instead, it leaves the possibility hanging, like a ghost that refuses to settle. For writers, this means that character arcs do not always need a neatly tied resolution—sometimes, the most poignant arcs are the ones that remain suspended, incomplete, like an invitation that is never fully answered.

Using environment to mirror emotional states

The natural world plays a key role in this section. The disarray of Theon’s farm mirrors Daniel’s emotional distance from his roots. The imagery of plants, seasons, and animals offers an emotional grounding that Daniel himself lacks. For writers, there is a lesson in how environmental descriptions can be used to deepen character introspection. The state of disrepair in the farm becomes an external manifestation of Daniel’s own disconnection from his family and past.

Naudé uses the environment not just as a backdrop but as a reflection of the characters’ internal worlds. The farm, once thriving but now neglected and overgrown, serves as an echo of Daniel’s estranged relationship with his family. Writers can learn from this approach by considering how physical settings can parallel and reinforce emotional states. By allowing the environment to reflect the inner turmoil or disrepair of a character’s mind, the story gains an additional layer of meaning—one that can resonate deeply with readers on a visceral level.

“The Birth Pains of Termites”: Care and the instinct to nurture

This section, which focuses on Hein’s perspective, explores the uneasy and often sterile nature of caregiving. Hein’s observation of Daniel and Theon’s "laboratory-like" approach to raising the child speaks to the tension between warmth and control in caregiving. Writers can learn from Naudé’s juxtaposition of clinical detachment with genuine care. Instead of idealizing the nurturing instinct, the story acknowledges that caregiving can be uncomfortable, impersonal, and alienating.

The idea of caregiving as both a necessity and a burden is central to this section. Hein’s observations reveal the contradictions inherent in nurturing—the desire to care for someone, weighed against the discomfort and emotional detachment that often accompanies such care. The tension between care and control, between genuine affection and a sense of duty, creates a nuanced portrayal of caregiving that is refreshingly devoid of sentimentality. For writers, this suggests that portraying caregiving honestly means acknowledging both its tenderness and its discomfort.

The unnamed child becomes a powerful symbol of liminality—caught between worlds, without a stable identity or a sense of belonging. A character without a name can serve as an evocative tool in fiction: a representation of an idea rather than an individual, or a reflection of the uncertainty and instability that surrounds them. Hein’s fascination with the termite queen—her birth pains as a metaphor for the burden of nurturing—adds a deeper layer to the story’s exploration of care, suggesting that true caregiving is always accompanied by pain.

The juxtaposition of Hein’s fascination with termites and the child’s liminal existence adds a layer of metaphor that deepens the narrative. Writers can draw from this approach by weaving in natural or biological imagery to mirror the emotional and psychological landscapes of their characters. The termite queen’s struggle—her role as both mother and prisoner—resonates with the ambivalence inherent in Hein’s caregiving, making the scene both poignant and disturbing.

“The City of Fathers and Sons”: Embracing decay and resisting sentimentality

In "The City of Fathers and Sons," Naudé takes us to a decaying farmhouse, mirroring the collapse of Daniel’s family. The imagery of "Eenzaamheid" (solitude) as a literal place anchors this section in a visceral meditation on loss, history, and decay. For writers, the use of decaying settings to reflect emotional or psychological states can be a powerful narrative device. The collapsing headstones and unmarked graves reflect not only the crumbling nature of family legacies but also the impossibility of preserving any sense of stability or permanence.

The setting of "Eenzaamheid" becomes more than just a physical location—it transforms into a character of its own, laden with meaning and symbolism. The decay of the farmhouse is intricately tied to the collapse of familial ties, suggesting that history itself is an unstable foundation. For writers, allowing settings to take on the weight of emotional resonance can offer a rich avenue for exploring themes of decay, loss, and impermanence. Settings that reflect the instability of characters’ inner worlds can add a haunting and memorable depth to the narrative.

Letting physical vulnerability shape character experience

Daniel’s physical vulnerability—his unreliable hip, his fall into the pumpkin patch—serves as a metaphor for his emotional state. Allowing characters to be physically vulnerable or impaired can provide a unique perspective on their experiences. It is a counterbalance to their internal conflicts and a reminder of their mortality. Writers can use physical fragility to mirror internal emotional fractures—letting a character’s body tell part of the story.

Daniel’s physical vulnerabilities, such as his injury, are symbolic of the ways in which he is constantly off-balance in his relationships and sense of self. Physicality, in this context, becomes an extension of emotional experience. Writers can explore the interplay between body and mind to create a richer, more holistic portrayal of character—one where physical limitations or vulnerabilities reflect the internal struggles and emotional turmoil that define a character’s journey.

Translation as reinvention: Crafting the afterlife of a text

Fathers and Fugitives was translated from Afrikaans to English by Michiel Heyns, and this transformation adds another layer of complexity. Translation, as Walter Benjamin suggests, is an "afterlife" of the original—a version that cannot replicate the source but rather transforms it into something imbued with new nuances. The duality of languages—each with its own set of cultural, historical, and emotional connotations—deepens the novel’s themes of dislocation and in-betweenness.

The texture of the translation adds another dimension to the narrative. Naudé’s language, filtered through Heyns’s translation, carries the weight of both its original context and its new one. This duality speaks to the experience of living between worlds, of inhabiting identities that are not entirely one thing or another. For writers, translation can be seen as a metaphor for the creative process itself—a process of transforming lived experience into something new, something that is both familiar and foreign.

For writers, working in translation or writing with multilingual influences can offer unique textures to a story. The inherent shifts in meaning, the inability to fully capture one language in another, mirrors the human experience of living between identities, between places, and between selves. To craft prose that feels as though it exists in translation—even when it doesn’t—is to embrace the multiplicity of meaning, the slipperiness of identity, and the inescapable imperfection of language. This approach can yield a narrative that feels layered, complex, and authentically disjointed, evoking the fragmented nature of lived experience.

The art of the unresolved

In Fathers and Fugitives, SJ Naudé refuses the comfort of resolution. Instead, he invites us into a world where identity, belonging, and relationships remain forever in flux—haunted by what could have been but never was. For writers, the lesson lies in the power of leaving things unsaid, of allowing fragments to stay fragmented, and of letting discomfort linger. The novel becomes a testament to the haunting nature of incomplete arcs, fractured identities, and relationships that never fully resolve.

To write like Naudé is to embrace the shadowed spaces between belonging and exile, between the said and the unsaid, and between connection and estrangement. It is to craft a story that leaves its characters, and its readers, searching for a home that may never be found—and finding power and beauty in that very search.

The unresolved nature of Fathers and Fugitives is not a flaw—it is a deliberate invitation to sit with discomfort. It is a reminder that life itself is often unresolved, that closure is a myth we tell ourselves to avoid confronting the true ambiguity of our existence. For writers, embracing the art of the unresolved is about more than resisting neat endings; it is about capturing the messiness, the uncertainty, and the haunting incompleteness of the human experience. To write in this way is to leave echoes, reverberations, and gaps that the reader must fill—turning reading into an active, participatory process that lingers long after the final page is turned.

Arman Chowdhury