Gabriel came from a wealthy family, was an intellectual, a journalist, and a bit of a celebrity in the small town where they lived. Ania was socially awkward, a poor student, and suffered feeling that she was never the child her father hoped for. She performed so poorly in school that she was held back repeatedly, causing embarrassment for Gabriel, and eventually going away to boarding school. When she graduated, she had no interest in returning home and instead moving to the Paris suburbs. The things in her bedroom remained exactly as she had left them when she went to school, until Gabriel's housekeeper boxed them and moved them to the attic. Ania met an Eastern European man, they married when she was pregnant with Theo, and are now finishing divorce proceedings. It was those many years, until that train journey, since Gabriel and Ania last saw each other for any significant length of time.
Gabriel uses his covert status to alight from the train far in advance of his daughter and grandson, speeding to arrive at his house long before they do. Once they arrive, he never acknowledges their shared transportation, and spends most of the time criticizing the fact that Ania came without giving any advanced notice. While he is secretly glad that they're there, he behaves as though their presence is a great inconvenience. She explained that, after seeing him in the newspaper that day, she made a knee-jerk decision to see him.
But why was Gabriel in the news, and why was it such a big deal for Ania? As a mildly public figure, Gabriel's presence in print wasn't uncommon, but the particulars of this publicity were quite shocking. Not long ago, a black man was murdered by some teenagers who lived in Gabriel's village. The victim was a homeless immigrant who was walking alone on a remote road, trying to find work, and the teenagers brutally attacked him for no reason. He was left to die in a field; his body was not discovered for days. The case made national headlines because it was racially-motivated hate crime, and most people denounced the boys...except for Gabriel. He came to their defense, in a xenophobic rant that sent shockwaves around the country. He was immediately a pariah, was publicly and prolifically ridiculed, and relieved of his job. It was her encountering these events that prompted Ania to make the rushed visit to her father - to try to make sense of why he did and said what he did. The visit brought no semblance of reconciliation or exposition, and actually further deepened the divide between them.
The next day, Ania received a call from a woman she didn't know, but found out that she was Gabriel's second wife, Clara. She explained that he committed suicide overnight, and Ania was needed to help with the funeral and estate preparations. From there, the story followed Ania, Clara, and the plethora of characters who surround them, literally and figuratively, during this tumultuous time. From those characters, Ania learns a lot about her father, seeing things from an adult's perspective now, but to what conclusion - does she come to terms with her father and his legacy?
Autopsy of a Father begins with a train ride, and from that point there is a constant sense of motion. Whether by bicycle, car, on foot, or by train - characters are all in some state of motion. Not just from place to place, there is also regular movement between the past and the present. The story constantly slides back and forth from present day in a small French village, to the Parisian suburbs, and then to various points in the past. The motion happens quickly, often without clear notice, which imbues Autopsy of a Father with a disorienting quality.
Another matter is the translation. You know when you read a translated work, and the writing feels so natural and easy that it's almost as if it wasn't translated at all? That wasn't the case with this book. In fact, there was a lot of awkward or confusing phrasing throughout the novel. The meaning was there, but it certainly impacted my enjoyment of the story. I suspect that this is the translator trying to keep the text close to the original French as possible, but in the end it detracted from the reading experience for me.
Autopsy of a Father is certainly an interesting reading experience. It expertly weaves in and out of the complexities of father-daughter relationships, class struggles, and small town life. It incorporates the xenophobia that is all too common throughout our world, and the brutal violence that surrounds it. It shows how public shaming and outrage impacts not only the object of that rage but a whole community. It is a story that, in many ways, is as much from the current day as it could be from any time in history; the factors at play transcend time. While I was unsatisfied with the translation, the work itself is compelling and definitely worth exploring.
Librorum annis,
