I was planning to post a longer piece with three more reviews today, but several things conspired to interfere with that plan. So I thought I’d share these two reviews now and post the others later this week.

Tata — Valerie Perrin (Europa Editions: June 23)

I loved Valerie Perrin’s first book translated into English, Fresh Water for Flowers (2020), and enjoyed the follow-up, Three (2022), and her first book, Forgotten on Sunday, when it was made available in English IN 2024. All three novels explore the secrets and mysteries of the past and the impact they have on those learning the truth.

Tata continues in a similar vein. Agnes, a young movie director, receives a call from the police in her aunt Colette’s small town telling her that Colette has passed away. Except Agnes attended her funeral three years earlier. If Colette has just died, who is buried in her grave. And why? And where was Colette the last three years?

Agnes returns to the town of Gueugnon to try to find the answers. She meets up with her aunt’s close friend, Louis, and three of her old friends, hoping they can help her learn why her aunt faked her own death. It turns out that Agnes’s knowledge of the aunt she was close to is far from complete. Colette was a woman ahead of her time, intent on living the life she wanted without regard to gender roles and restrictions. She owned a shoe repair shop, was a passionate supporter of the local soccer team (and the only female member), and never married.

Fortunately, Colette left behind dozens of cassette tapes in which she tells her story, which is unconventional to say the least. Suffice to say her story includes circus performers, a cold-blooded killer, family trauma, a piano prodigy, and more. Through the dual timelines, Valerie Perrin slowly adds pieces to the puzzle of Colette’s life for Agnes, and readers, to interpret. Tata‘s combination of a mystery, a character study, a social observation novel, and a love story makes for an absorbing, surprising, and memorable reading experience. That’s the Perrin trademark.

Loved and Missed — Susie Boyt (New York Review Books, 2023)

I was inspired to read Loved and Missed by several rave reviews on Instagram. Originally published in the UK in 2021, it took another two years before it was published in the U.S. by NYRB. It’s a sensitive depiction of a woman’s complicated relationship with her drug addicted adult daughter, who has a young daughter of her own, raising the emotional stakes significantly.

Loved and Missed provides an alternately heart-wrenching and touching look into the efforts of Ruth to support her daughter Eleanor without making things worse by pressuring her too much. She is convinced that love will save the day, somehow. After one of Eleanor’s friends dies of a drug overdose in her apartment, Ruth takes Lily home with her and raises her the best she can. Watching their relationship develop and evolve is the main pleasure of this book. Whatever Ruth’s failings, her love and devotion save Lily from a feckless and negligent mother. Boyt writes with remarkable insight and sensitivity into these interconnected relationships. Ruth and her granddaughter Lily are characters you need to meet. This is a novel that will stay with you.