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.