A review by abby_writes
Distant Fathers by Marina Jarre

5.0

This is in some ways a very distant and obtuse memoir that touches on the trials of the Waldensian people, living through WWII, and the personal trials of familial relationships. Jarre's prose is poetic and doubles back on itself with reminiscences through the sections (roughly split into childhood, adolescence, and adulthood) weaving memories with dreams, Jarre admits she often lies and fabricates things and the reader is left wondering. For a book whose title references fathers, Jarre's memoir is mostly about women, her strained relationship with her mother and sometimes her sister and daughter -- at one point she announces, "I have always been an unmarried mother," despite having a husband. Ann Goldstein did an excellent job of translating Jarre's unique stream of consciousness memoir and I hope this will not be Marina Jarre's last book translated to English.