Tata is a story of unconditional love and the complications that come with being human. Some of these humans are shoe repairers, some are movie stars. Some are trapeze artists in a circus, some are clerks in small provincial town offices. We encounter murderers who border on being serial killers, football players along with their fans, and musical prodigies. Wildly broad in scope and yet deeply intimate, Valérie Perrin has accomplished that great feat of creating a big, wide, world, with a story you still feel like you are personally stepping into.
When Agnes is called home to identify the body of her most beloved Aunt (Tata) Colette, it comes as quite a shock; they buried Colette three years ago. What follows is an epic generational tale wrapped up in a mystery, numerous love stories, and an ode to family both biological and found. Along with recovered childhood friends, Agnes follows her aunts stories, both the aunt who died recently, and the one they buried three years ago, across the country and back again. Looking for answers but finding answers to different questions.
I read Tata in the early days of this summer, and it has left a lasting impression. My own beloved Great Aunt passed as I was merely a few chapters into this story, and the waves of sadness that burst into my life over the days that I read this book were cathartically touched by the story of Agnes and her search for Aunt Colette.
The depth of family love on display in so many of the stories she finds along the way, is staggering, breathtaking, and so very familiar to me. This book is a rollercoaster of emotion, full of twists, turns, and cliffhangers. And Perrin navigates through them all with prose that is alternately beautiful and hyper realistic. She describes the circus of oddities in such detail that you can smell the sweat, but then paints the town and its occupants like a breath of fresh air. I found myself a co-traveler alongside Agnes as she finds her aunt, herself, and her life again. Entranced and addicted to the journey we were on together, arriving at such immense satisfaction at the culmination of the wide variety of narratives.
The cast of characters that Perrin introduces us to in Tata are worthy of a Tolstoy appendix, but thankfully each character has only one name, well most of them only have one name! Colette, Tata herself, has many. Many names, many lives, and more than one face. I believe however that my favorite characters are ones that are only mentioned briefly towards the end of the story. Mentioned in passing early on, then in great but brief detail, then never again. The story of Lyece’s sisters, Tatina and Zeia, simultaneously haunted me and had me fist pumping the air as they detailed their discovery late in life of their brother’s abuse by a football coach, and each relaying how they confronted the abuser.
She hadn’t understood why her brother had suddenly stopped playing football, when he was the best at it, should have pursued a sporting career. When she’d asked him the question, he’d smiled sadly at her.
With moments of profound sadness and intense fear, the book manages to ultimately remain a victory over all the things in life that would drag you down. The hostile characters in the book, the mothers who cannot love, the husbands who abuse, the men who wallow in their own idolatry of self. These are depicted shockingly well, but over 40 years ultimately other things triumph. There is not always a fairy tale ending, but friendship, love, football, the simple things, faith, all steady the course and win the day. Sacrifice is made along the way, but so is lemonade.
As you know, I think God abandoned me when I was seven, but he seriously made up for it last year… when someone’s in love as I am, they have superpowers.
My own Great Aunt died this year at 91. While she didn’t live as many lives as Colette, she lived through so much. She was born in 1935, lived through war, coal mine strikes, adopted two girls, lost her husband 20 years ago, and loved everyone around her far beyond measure. She would send letters to us from England at least once a month for the two decades that I have lived in Maine, and we would send her postcards from every adventure we had. She would find things in British magazines and newspapers and send us the clippings of things she knew each child was interested in. We would send pictures of every milestone and every little thing. I have been fortunate to always be aware of the value of my aunt, a woman who loved fiercely and lived a long rich life. Watching Agnes rediscover her remarkable Aunt Colette, Tata, in this story, was a balm for my soul, and it’s a damned good book.
The book has been translated from the French by Hildegarde Serle who was the translator of the sublime Mirror Visitor quadrilogy by Christelle Dabos. GeekMom received a copy of this book for review purposes, but this Geekmoms love of the publishing house Europa Editions is carved in stone.
