The Fathers

The Fathers is a hilarious and heart-breaking account of fatherhood, marriage, fertility, parenting, grief, class and masculinity; it is John Niven's 11th novel

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Meet Dan Chambers. He's 45. Dan's the creator of one of Scotland's longest running, most-beloved soap operas. He's married to Lucy, 43, a lawyer. They live in a four-storey Victorian townhouse in the heart of Glasgow's leafy west end.

Meet Jada Harrison, also 45. Jada's a graduate of HMP Shotts. Jada is the creator of much work for Scotland's social services systems. Technically he's with 19-year-old Bianca, but he pretty much presents as a single man. They live in a one-bedroom council flat in Partick, just a mile away from the Chambers' place.

Dan and Jada live in very different worlds, both called Glasgow. In the normal run of things, they would never meet unless Dan was perhaps called for jury duty. But meet these star-crossed men do: in the early hours of a January morning in front of the maternity ward where they have both just become fathers. What follows is an unlikely and complicated friendship as the men navigate their very different versions of fatherhood.