Oliver, J: Failure to Thrive

When Canadian reality TV producer Jonathan Farb finds out that he may be dying of a brain tumor on the same day that he catches his wife having an affair with her obstetrician, he makes a pledge: to raise his five month-old son Elliot to manhood before his time is up. Farb's list of parenting goals range from instilling a religious identification (can a baby be Bar Mitzvahed?), to the importance of Education (The Birds and The Bees), and onto more pressing pursuits like amassing capital for his son's inheritance. Can Farb succeed in getting his reality TV pitch 'Canada's Next Great Apologist' greenlit despite the opposition of his antagonistic boss, a pathological fear of public speaking, and his declining mental and physical health? An energetic and ultimately poignant literary debut, Failure To Thrive digs deep into the compromises of marriage, the intensity of parenthood and the love that propels a father in the face of his own mortality to raise his son.