Elliot Jager was eight when his father walked out on him and his mother. Decades later, struggling to reconcile with his now elderly Pater, he discovers he can never be a father himself. Feeling doubly betrayed, by the earthly father who abandoned him and the one in Heaven who denies him, Jager sets out to discover the meaning of life without children. Talking to other men – single and married, gay and straight – who share his plight, he explores the stigmas of the Jewish community towards the childless, the sense of helplessness and failure that comes with infertility, and the existential battle to fill the void. Brave, poignant, and uncompromisingly honest, The Pater tells the hitherto untold story of the childless Jewish man.
