In Tata, Valérie Perrin (Fresh Water for Flowers) weaves a mystery that connects complex characters and subplots, plumbing the depths of the performing arts.
Now a talented filmmaker, Agnès is the only daughter of two musicians--pianist Jean Septembre and violinist Hannah Rubin--in Lyon, France. Every summer while they toured, Agnès stayed with Colette, her father's sister, in the small town of Gueugnon. The novel opens on October 21, 2010, when a gendarmerie captain calls Agnès to tell her that Colette has died. The trouble is, her aunt was buried three years ago.
Colette leaves Agnès a cache of 119 cassettes, which reveal much--but not all--of their family's history. As Agnès sets out to discover who lies in her aunt's grave and listens to the cassettes, she realizes how little she knew her aunt. Through Colette's childhood friendship with Blaise, whose aristocratic parents employ her father to tend their land, Perrin exposes France's class divide. Blaise's mother created opportunities for Jean to study piano when she recognized the boy as a prodigy. Colette's other childhood friend, Blanche, a high-wire acrobat who wanted to escape her controlling, murderous circus-owner father, exemplifies the limited opportunities for women in post-World War II Europe. Always Colette is at the center, a woman of few words but great acts.
Translated from the French by Hildegarde Serle, Perrin's passages on music and cinema give the novel its soul (Hannah thinks of "the great joy of a piece you know backwards, but feel as if you're discovering each time"). Tata is a gorgeous reminder of the moments that shape a life, and what a gift it is to truly know the people who matter. --Jennifer M. Brown