The Blackfish Inheritance by Thomas Wolfson

The Blackfish Inheritance by Thomas Wolfson

Based on the life of author Thomas Wolfson, The Blackfish Inheritance is a sweeping bildungsroman about a man attempting to escape from the outsize influence of his father and come into his own.

Leon's travails begin with a privileged upbringing in New York City's Upper East Side, marred by spectacular family feuds between his famously eccentric father, a renowned artist and writer, and his blue-blooded mother.

Alternately serious, hilarious, and poignant, Leon evokes the iconic Holden Caulfield and Jack Kerouac as he struggles with alienation and a lack of direction as a young student before heading to Los Angeles. There he works in the plumbing business, tries on the life of an insurance agent, and eventually becomes involved in a cult. Returning to the East Coast, Leon longs for a loving reconciliation with his difficult father. Even after his father's gone, Leon finds himself wrestling with his ghost-with the help of a Wampanoag medicine man.

This lyrically written creative nonfiction novel encompasses a range of intriguing themes, including elitism, the tumultuous '60s, the insurance industry, shamanism, spirituality, Carl Jung, and psychology- offering a compelling journey through human interactions to which everyone can relate.

Thomas Wolfson was raised in New York City during the '50s and '60s, spending his childhood summers at family property in Wellfleet on Cape Cod. In 1990 he moved permanently to Wellfleet with his wife and daughter, where he has been involved in acting and writing.

His novel The Blackfish Inheritance is a fictionalized autobiography illuminating the struggle of a son to cast off the shadow of his charismatic father and make his own way in life.