There is as much breath as power in this third novel by Canadian Emma Hooper, musician and author whose first book, Etta, Otto (and Russell and James), gave her a resounding international success.
Brilliantly translated at Alto by Dominique Fortier, Let’s not be afraid of the sky is a vast fresco which, even if it takes place at the end of Antiquity against a background of persecution of Christians, is of a formidable modernity as much in its writing only in his words.
In the beginning, therefore, there are nine sisters emerging from their mother’s womb at the same time. Two will not survive and the others will be saved and entrusted to different families, but in this harsh world of disease and poverty, they will soon be only five. Each will then carry the thread of the story, in more or less long chapters which simply bear their first name and their rank in the order of their arrival in the world: Quiteria, Marina, Liberata, Basil, Vitoria.
A story that is not linear and cleverly constructed, that goes back or projects forward, jumps in time by illuminating a situation differently, tells parallel stories depending on who is the main voice. The sisters thus pass the baton, and if some take up the torch more often than others, we move forward in this way without anything or anyone being left behind, the author weaving the thread of her tapestry, like Marina, with delicacy and precision.
The five protagonists may have personalities, particularities and aspirations as different as possible, it is their sisterhood that gives them the strength to carry out their individual quests. This is what gives all the power to this novel of emancipation, freedom and courage in the face of adversity and the elements. And even if it takes place under the Roman Empire, at a time when women were not mistresses of their destiny, this control which is exerted on them, and their quiet resistance (or not), can only mention today.
Let’s not be afraid of the sky is in fact profoundly universal and human, but at the same time remains an epic novel full of twists and turns, a kind of adventure story carried by a poetic and multifaceted, luminous and rhythmic writing – the way in which five sisters talk to each other, full of silences and onomatopoeias that say a lot, and particularly successful.
We close this brilliant book remaining haunted for a long time by these feverish pages and its overwhelming finale, the shadow of Quiteria, Marina and the others dancing around us like so many images of women in all their complexity, their uniqueness and their depth. . Emma Hooper signs here a great sorority novel, a great novel period.
