'Given the bedlam it describes, Raising Raffi is impressively clear-sighted, entertaining and analytical' - Financial Times

'A wise, mild and enviably lucid book about a chaotic scene' - Dwight Garner, New York Times

'Engaging, accessible, down to earth... There is much wry humour here' - James Cook, Times Literary Supplement

Keith Gessen had always assumed that he would have kids, but couldn't imagine what parenthood would be like, nor what kind of parent he would be. Then, one Tuesday night in early June, Raffi was born, a child as real and complex and demanding of his parents' energy as he was singularly magical.

Fatherhood is another country: a place where the old concerns are swept away, where the ordering of time is reconstituted, where days unfold according to a child's needs. Like all parents, Gessen wants to do what is best for his child. But he has no idea what that is.

Written over the first five years of Raffi's life, Raising Raffi examines the profound, overwhelming, often maddening experience of being a dad. How do you instil in your child a sense of his heritage without passing on that history's darker sides? Is parental anger normal, possibly useful, or is it inevitably destructive? And what do you do, in a pandemic, when the whole world seems to fall apart? By turns hilarious and poignant, Raising Raffi is a story of what it means to invent the world anew.

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A wise, mild and enviably lucid book about a chaotic scene... Gessen is a calm and observant writer - if he were a singer, he'd always come in a bit behind the beat - who raises, and struggles with, the right questions about himself and the world

"Given the bedlam it describes, Raising Raffi is impressively clear-sighted, entertaining and analytical" - Financial Times

"A funny and disarmingly sweet book, Raising Raffi is written with the discipline of a committed reader who has found refuge in reading amidst the trials of parenthood, a global pandemic and the outbreak of war" - Skinny

"Keith Gessen writes captivatingly about bringing up his son... engaging, accessible, down to earth... There is much wry humour here" - Times Literary Supplement

"A father's careful, piercing introspection, and a deep analysis of anger... Gessen writes about his temperamental, trying son with a depth that can only come from years of loving observation... Memoirs of fatherhood are rarely so honest or so blunt" - Atlantic

"Gessen offers both investigative probe and personal confession; he's both a critic and a dad... But it's one of the most honest accounts of the rage a parent can feel when personally victimized by their small children, even as they love those children with stupefying tenderness. I've never seen this reckoned with so candidly before" - Slate

"Raising Raffi is tender and generous" - New York magazine