Blue Tango by Simone Piuze (review)

Karima Perrin montre de l’habileté, de la vivacité et une grande maîtrise de la narration pour retracer le parcours de vie de sa mère avec qui elle établit une relation spéciale. Son écriture délicate, élégante et ambitieuse touche le lecteur, qui se laisse bercer par cette histoire avec énormément de bonheur et d’émotions. Montclair State University (NJ) Rabia Redouane PIUZE, SIMONE. Blue Tango. Montréal: Triptyque, 2011. ISBN 978-2-89031-711-6. Pp. 325. $24 Can. Jean Courtemanche is a complicated man. At fifty-six, this Quebecer is brilliant in business but incapable of more than passing relationships with women and he feels lost. Simone Piuze gives a voice to this man as he struggles with past tragedies and present events that, by the end of the story, coalesce to give him a chance at happiness. It is difficult to place this novel in just one category. First and foremost, it is a personal narration, and we note the care with which Piuze, when writing in the first-person as Jean, gives access to his thoughts, fears, and self-reflection. She draws the reader close to the main character by lengthy descriptions of his conduct in a variety of situations (in bed with a new conquest, in the office of Myriam his new psychologist, or in his apartment with his brother William). However, one might wonder how Jean, who is so confused at this point in his life, is capable of such detailed self-observation. Describing a session with Myriam, he gives this account: “Je me tus. Je ne fis que lui sourire avec sensualité, mon regard rivé au sien. L’invitation était directe, sans équivoque. Je lui demandai si je pouvais la prendre dans mes bras” (91). Nonetheless, with willing suspension of disbelief we can appreciate this as a device for letting the reader know exactly what is going on. In the same vein it is distracting when Jean seems to hear himself and characterizes his own speech: “je marmonnais” (41). Such textual techniques are less problematic when Jean talks about the characters that surround him and his perception of them gives insight into who he is. Dialogue among the characters is also revealing, although some scenes feel stilted, in particular those that integrate English purportedly spoken by an Anglophone. As one might expect, this is also a novel of psychological realism. How did Jean become this fragmented man? Bits and pieces of his past come to light and it is the revelation of their place in the construction of Jean’s psyche that drives the novel forward. Chance encounters and fortuitous coincidences give Jean the means to reopen doors that were closed. A night of casual sex leads him to rediscover a painting of himself at sixteen, lost to him after the artist’s death. The shock brings to the fore his sublimated history with the older woman who was his first lover and whose brutal murder left him emotionally damaged. His brother William comes to care for him during his time of pain, revealing a profound relationship that will, in the end, be deeply disturbing. A newfound friend helps Jean to connect with the father he never knew and the whirlwind father-son relationship between the aged musician and the middle-aged businessman brings something to Jean that he had always lacked. Abandonment is a theme throughout Jean’s exploration and the resolution of each desertion issue leads him closer to a cohesive sense of self. Lastly, this is a murder-mystery. Martha Lupien, the artist/lover, disappeared one night in 1965. Jean knows some of what happened, having found her and 226 FRENCH REVIEW 86.1 buried her ravaged body. And now he needs to know more. He relives the night of her death over and over, listening to Blue Tango, to which they had danced. Forty years later, in a startling final twist, the murderer confesses his crime. Personal narrative, psychological study, murder-mystery. What ties these together, through events in the life of Jean Courtemanche, is an overwhelming sense that much happens by chance. Whether this is a philosophical stance or a slight weakness in...