One more bitter thing about failure: all the books on it are written by successes.
Or all, at least, of the published ones. Hanif Kureishi says his father Shannoo led a "semi-broken" life; and Shannoo Kureishi wrote a series of rejected novels. These now form the bedrock of My Ear at His Heart.
Kureishi discusses his father's childhood in India - and his years of frustration working in Pakistan's London embassy - supplementing three unpublished manuscripts with the best-selling autobiography of his uncle Omar, the high-living journalist brother Shannoo always envied.
Bearings are also provided from the writings of Gandhi and Enoch Powell. My Ear at His Heart is an acute, uncomfortable book - part memoir, part criticism, part biography, part journal. Tenderness competes with truth, rivalry with eulogy.
And if Kureishi isn't prepared to tidy up the tensions, that doesn't mean he's not aware of them. This is a pretty solid memorial.
My Ear at His Heart: Reading My Father by Hanif Kureishi is published by Faber & Faber, priced £12.99.
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