Gabriel Garcia Marquez had two sons, and the recently published A Farewell to Gabo and Mercedes by Rodrigo Garcia is one son's loving tribute to his parents. It's both an account of reckoning with his father's growing dementia and eventual death (followed a few years' later by the death of his mother Mercedes) as well as a glimpse into what it is to wrestle with the various personas of his father. Rodrigo also comes to terms with his need to publish this insight even as he acknowledges how his parents protected their privacy.

It is an intimate portrait of a public figure, and Garcia is an author in his own right. While Garcia's family is sprinkled around the world and he's familiar with what it is to be the son of someone much revered in the public eye, his accounts are ones that resonate with those who have experienced the imbalance and universality of death. While frank with the grieving process, there is still wonder and delight in these pages: the meeting of his parents as young children, the coincidences found in his father's books (the day of his death, the behavior of birds).

This is a fitting tribute from a son to his parents and it gently covers the immediacy and the shock of grief.

(I received a digital ARC from HarperVia via NetGalley in exchange for my honest review.)