Tata
Valérie Perrin’s Tata is a bewitching novel about found family and the transformative power of love.
Agnes mistook her Aunt Colette for being a “simple and linear” woman whose life was “devoid of mystery.” She loved her summer visits to Gueugnon, where Colette, a favorite fan among the local football club, repaired shoes, but her musician parents seemed to lead more glittering lives. However, when Agnes—now a famous film director navigating divorce—receives word that her aunt, who was buried three years ago, just died, her preconceptions of Colette’s “ordinary” life burst. Sent “on the most extraordinary voyage” to learn who her aunt’s doppelganger was, she uncovers a multitude of secrets that also explode her perceptions of herself and her family’s past.
As the book progresses, Agnes proves to be “the child of several stories. Powerful stories.” Her aunt sacrificed a bigger future so that her father could become a concert pianist; her grandparents sacrificed it all so that her mother could live through the Holocaust; and her aunt sacrificed her dearest loves to protect others’ senses of propriety and, later, a dear friend’s life. She learns more about her childhood friends while searching, too, including about Lyéce, whose “wings [were] clipped one Wednesday afternoon” by a sexual predator, prompting several townspeople to contemplate homicide on the Riviera. Lyéce, though, blossoms toward love as truths are uncovered—one of many to find a second chance among unburied facts.
Perrin has a gift for excavating enchantments from the everyday, and does so here with her generous tale of circus girls, fated meet-cutes by piano, escaped monkeys, and hidden pregnancies. Villains lurk, proving that “hatred and madness are ageless,” but among the magnificent pages of Tata, love—among friends, family members, and parents by proxy—proves more lasting.
Reviewed by
Michelle Anne Schingler
Disclosure: This article is not an endorsement, but a review. The publisher of this book provided free copies of the book to have their book reviewed by a professional reviewer. No fee was paid by the publisher for this review. Foreword Reviews only recommends books that we love. Foreword Magazine, Inc. is disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255.
