Hair Everywhere

by Tea Tulić, Coral Petkovich (Translator)

'Hair Everywhere' is the story of an ordinary family and how they cope with curing the incurable disease: cancer. It is a tale which balances itself along the female line of grandmoher-mother-daughter, revealing their strengths and weaknesses in times of trouble. It is also a story about how roles within a family can change when things become unbalanced due to sickness or death, allowing some to grow and others to fade. Ultimately, this is a book about life; full of humour and absurdity as well as sadness, and set against the everyday background of incidents and casual meetings.

Genres: Poetry, Fiction, Grief, Novella, 21st Century, Short Stories

146 pages, Paperback

First published June 1, 2011

Reviews

[Rebecca · Rating 4 out of 5]

(3.5) How could I resist such a terrific title and cover image? This was Croatian novelist Tea Tulić’s first book. In brief, titled vignettes almost like flash fiction stories, she dramatizes how a cancer diagnosis affects three generations of women. The book is strong on place, sensual detail and scene-setting. The narrator’s mother is in the hospital, and all the specialists and medicinal plant extracts in the world don’t seem to be helping. In such a restrictive narrative format, a line or two of dialogue can reveal a lot about a character’s attitude. The grandmother is a weary pessimist – “I just need to help your mother get through this and then I can die” – while the narrator is quite the hypochondriac.

The tone ranges from poignant to cynical, as in the absurd two-page sequence in which the family cannot locate an on-duty doctor who can read the latest X-ray results for them. The deadpan language and mixture of black humor and pathos reminded me of Adios, Cowboy by Olja Savičevi, which coincidentally is the only other Croatian novel I’ve encountered, and was originally published in the same year, 2011.

A few favorite lines:

“One little cloud was urinating.”

“While I watch her lying in bed, I can feel the umbilical cord between us. Something I have tried to cut a thousand times already. And now I hold onto that invisible cord as though I were hanging from a bridge.”

“Patrick Swayze” in its entirety: “My brother is angry because the doctors say they cannot help Mum. I tell him Patrick Swayze had lots of money but he still died of cancer.”

Originally published on my blog, Bookish Beck.

[Vishy · Rating 5 out of 5]

Tea Tulić is a Croatian writer and 'Hair Everywhere' is her first book.

The narrator of 'Hair Everywhere' is a young girl. The book has short chapters which are mostly just a paragraph long, in which the narrator describes her everyday life, her mother, her grandmother, her father, her sister, her neighbours, her pets, and shares her thoughts on things that she finds interesting. One day her mother is unwell and is admitted at the hospital. She stays there for a while. It turns out that her mother has cancer. While her mother's health declines, we see how our narrator's life changes and how she reacts to it through her writing.

'Hair Everywhere' is a beautiful, poignant book. We see the unfolding tragedy through a young girl's voice, which is beautiful, charming, unique, honest and candid, like only a young person's voice can be. The title comes from this passage, in which the narrator describes her mother after the situation has worsened.

"Hair is everywhere. On the pillow. On the floor. In her hands and mine. We talk about coloured Indian scarves. About thick soup. Bad weather. Discipline. We talk about dry skin. We talk about everything, but still we feel sad because of the hair. It is a symbol of the greedy animal in her head. Her skin is flaking off her too. When she changes her vest, tiny flakes waft through the air."

It is heartbreaking to read.

I loved 'Hair Everywhere'. It gives literary shape to a nightmare that every child has about their mother. It also shows how in the middle of big personal tragedies, everyday life just keeps flowing along. It was beautiful and heartbreaking to read. 'Hair Everywhere' won wide praise and literary awards when it was first published in Croatian ten years back.

I'll leave you with some of my favourite passages from the book.

"The next snapshot shows an aeroplane dropping bombs that are falling somewhere down below, into a thick forest. In the picture you can’t see that the forest hides squirrels, owls, foxes, people and our vision. When the bomb reaches the ground, it won’t matter whether the man down there was a good teacher. Or that he exchanged his coat for a sack of potatoes. Or that the slaughter of the squirrels caused God-knows what disruption in Nature. The green trees survived."

"In the big market place, stuffed with people and different kinds of yoghurts, I buy cheese. Only people, of all the mammals in the world, consume milk and milk products after they grow up. And all those people are here, in the queue in front of me..."

"My brother is angry because the doctors say they cannot help Mum. I tell him Patrick Swayze had lots of money but he still died of cancer."

"Once in the newspaper it said that three Japanese fishermen had been fishing in the middle of the ocean and that a cow fell from the sky and killed them. The cow had been dropped from a plane flying directly above them. And two more the same way! They were too heavy for the plane to fly properly. The unfortunate Japanese drowned, and the bizarre ugly fish continued to circle around, down there in the darkness."

Have you read 'Hair Everywhere'? What do you think about it?

[Snoakes · Rating 5 out of 5]

Hair Everywhere is an elegant work of art. Its short chapters are a collection of prose portraits, indeed some could easily be considered poetry. The individual pieces are in turn beautiful, desperately sad, amusing, dreamlike and prosaic. Taken as a whole they build a picture of the lives of three women - grandmother, mother and daughter. Mother has cancer and is dying. Grandmother alternates between vulnerable and strong - refusing to let go until she has helped her child through this. The daughter, from whose viewpoint the pieces are written, alternately reminisces about their family life, grasps at improbable remedies for her mother and pragmatically describes her mother's situation.
Bittersweet and an absolute delight. Thanks to Istros for the review copy.

[Moris · Rating 5 out of 5]

Prozni prvijenac „Kosa posvuda“ Tee Tulić je...

...kolekcija minijaturnih bombonijera. U 140 stranica je otprilike isto toliko i poglavlja, ili ako hoćete, zasebnih priča. Nazovite ih crticama, nazovite ih pjesma u prozi, upotrijebite termin flash-fiction, štogod. Većina njih ima jedva deset redaka.

Te bombonijere su rađene od vrlo, vrlo gorke čokolade. Klize kroz grlo vrlo glatko, ali dok se tope, ništa im ne ublažuje žuki okus.

Ovdje prestajem s tom usporedbom, jer ću u protivnom trivijalizirati knjigu.

Da pojasnim. Ove minijature, ove slike introspekcije su poglavlja jednog romana koji ponire u groznu, intimnu temu: bolest majke, praćenje deterioracije njezina zdravlja i naposljetku, smrt.

Teško mi je hvatati se u koštac s riječima da bih napisao ovu recenziju i prenio ono što zapravo želim reći. Dokaz više da je „Kosa posvuda“ veliki roman velikog autora.

Pst-pst između redaka, za slučaj da vas grize crv sumnje: da li je ovaj autoričin prvijenac „početnička sreća“ ili je riječ o autoru koji će nas iznova oduševljavati? To vam postane jasno onog trenutka kad počnete čitati knjigu, ali za vas nevjerne Tome, evo jedne vjestice: između izdavanja knjige (lipanj 2011.) do danas (godinu dana kasnije), Tea Tulić je čitala svoje nove prozne uratke na izvjesnim književnim okupljanjima, i nije nimalo podbacila u svojoj literarnoj snazi.

Spomenut ću i Teinu komponentu humora; to je opservacija iz gotovo naivno-infantilne perspektive koja siječe čega god se dotakne, od društva, međuodnosa, mišljenja, ne štedjeći ni autoricu samu.

Ta naizgled infantilna komponenta je bitan nositelj. Britke, jednostavne rečenice stvaraju efekt kakav jezična ornamentika ne bi mogla postići. Autorica se često osvrće na vlastito djetinjstvo; gradacijom kroz fabulu naivnost se topi, ali konciznost izraza ostaje – pretače se u opservacije koje ubadaju duboko u iskustvenu sferu čitatelja.

Ovakav način pisanja povremeno meandrira u poetske dosege. S obzirom da sam ljubitelj poezije, moram izdvojiti „Zaručnika“, koji bi s lakoćom mogao stajati uz bok najljepšim pjesma u prozi koje je čovječanstvo dobilo. Još jedan takav vrhunac knjige je sam klimaks, („Bosonogi“) – priznajem da sam strahovao kako će neizbježni, prijelomni trenutak knjige biti riješen, no izveden je bez patetike, implicitno, s gotovo kinematičnom ljepotom u svojoj gorčini.

Gorenavedeni pasus zaista nije floskula. Potpisnik ovih redaka je sklopio površno poznanstvo s autoricom, ima njezinu posvetu u knjizi, i zbog toga se osjeća kao klipan. Nestvarno je. Ovo je djelo u rangu jednog Andrića, Borghesa ili Tagorea.

[Valentina · Rating 5 out of 5]

Kratka, haiku proza (kao što je pisao Stankovic u Depri) pisana iz perspektive curice (kao ranije Maša Kolanović u Sloboština Barbie i kasnije Tisja Kljaković). Ovdje je važna i forma i fabula i ritam i obrisi društva, a govori se zapravo o riječi “bez imalo mekoće, satkane od samih suglasnika” - smrti. Nemojte da vas to uplaši jer priče su i zbavne, tople, mudre i dirljive.
Zašto mi nitko prije nije rekao za ovu moćnu knjižicu.

[Jelena · Rating 5 out of 5]

Koliko je reči potrebno za priču o tri generacije žena u jednoj porodici? Krupna tema i krupan poduhvat nisu stvar gabarita, niti je snaga teksta uslovljena formom. „Kosa posvuda“ odličan je dokaz za to.

U ovom nizu crtica, beleški, opažanja (neke od po dve, neke od po desetak rečenica, retko koja na celoj jednoj strani) glavnu nit daju tok bolesti i gubitak, ali su stožer nona, majka i kći (naratorka), od kojih majka predstavlja ne samo generacijsku sredinu već i emocionalno središte događaja. Iako su svaka sitna uspomena i svaka epizoda dovoljno samostalni i zaokruženi, ni u jednom trenutku ne manjka toka radnje i razvoja likova ili ostalih sastojaka potrebnih za roman. Tako ovaj haiku roman vodi kroz nijanse besa, očajanje, nade i beznadežnosti, premora, sebičluka, nežnosti, malodušnosti.

Ipak suština svakako nije u preplavljujućoj bujici svih ovih emocija niti u ophrvanosti do tačke pucanja. (Svakako ništa ne bi tako lako uništilo duboko osećanje ili empatiju kao patetika i prenemaganje, kao i u životu uostalom.) Isto tako ni nesvakidašnja forma nije glavni adut. Duboka intima ovih crtica i nadasve ličan odnos koji se uspostavlja sa čitaocem potiču od jednostavnosti nanizanih opažaja. Bez obzira na to kojom je emocijom prebojen i da li evocira sećanja ili se odnosi na neposrednu stvarnost romana, svima im je zajednička jednostavnost. Svi su ogoljeni i skoro rudimentarni, bez kićenja i doterivanja, svedeni na minimalističko konstatovanje činjeničnog stanja.

Intima uvek podrazumeva raskrinkavanje, i pred drugima i pred sobom. Ako odbacimo zavaravanje, racionalizaciju, opravdanja, ostaje otprilike samo to da su svi naši postupci i osećanja naprosto takvi kakvi su. To je najsnažnija spona između romana i čitaoca, jer smo u nekom trenutku barem, bez ikakvog vrednovanja i osude, svi svodili račune o prošlosti, sadašnjosti, sebi. Retko čiji život čine epohalne prekretnice, daleko je više sitnih događaja i doživljaja, sitnih odluka, sitnih poteza i velikih promena u sitnim koracima. I svi smo, kao u meni lično najupečatljivijem i najdražem fragmentu, nekad imali neku haljinu sa Mikijem. Ili bordo patike sa plavom prugom u mom slučaju.

[Nataliya Deleva · Rating 5 out of 5]

"Hair Everywhere" is a beautifully written fragmented novel. Тhe story is about a girl trying to comprehend and cope with the incurable illness of her mother, however you won’t find cheap sentiment in here. It’s told through miniature snippets of time and emotions, searching for meaning of what’s happening: in rituals and everyday objects and, when no hope is left, coming to terms with life as it is. Quirky and brilliant!

[Joseph Schreiber · Rating 5 out of 5]

Sad, gently surreal, fragmentary novel, more like a flow of short, loosely linear pieces of flash fiction that follow the narrator awkward transition from adolescence to womanhood as her mother slowly dies of cancer. Most unusual and affecting. A longer review can be found here: https://roughghosts.com/2017/12/26/iv...

[Iris · Rating 5 out of 5]

kratko i gorko

[Lauren]

• HAIR EVERYWHERE by Tea Tulić, tr. from the Croatian by Coral Petkovich, 2011.

#ReadtheWorld21📍 Croatia

"While I watch her lying in bed, I can feel the umbilical cord between us. Something I have tried to cut a thousand times already. And now I hold onto that invisible cord as though I were hanging from a bridge."

Tulić's novel is a collection of microfictions / prose poems surrounding the terminal cancer diagnosis of the unnamed narrator's mother, and the every day prosaic, commonplace occurrences in her life.

The fragmented form of the writing feels like plucked memories or excerpts from a diary. Certain phrases are repeated in various pieces - ‘I’ve been left alone.’

Loss and death are themes here, but surprisingly trauma and grief are not prevalent in the tone of writing, at least in translation. The overall tone of the writing is more light and observational, despite the sad subject matter.

I found an excerpt this work by Tulić in McSweeney's # 48 literary quarterly journal from 2013. This was one of 7 pieces by Croatian writers - 6 translated short stories, and 1 introductory essay about modern Croatian lit. Tulić's piece was definitely my favorite of the bunch. This promptee me to seek out the entire work of HAIR EVERYWHERE. Since that 2013 publication, the entire book is now available in translation.

[Na Ta · Rating 5 out of 5]

"U naselju fasadnog nasilja novčano nagrađeni vrtovi kriju hladne klupe."

[Heta · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 stars

Croatian author Tea Tulic's debut novel Hair Everywhere is a gem of very short fiction. Told in little vignettes, it is told from the point of view of a young woman (her specific age is never given, but she is considerably older than her little sister, so around her early-to-mid 20s) whose mother has been diagnosed with cancer. It is a cross-generational story that, albeit told from one point of view, also focuses heavily on the mom battling with cancer, and her mother, the narrator's grandma, who is dedicated to outliving her daughter and taking care of her child until the end.

The emotional impact of Hair Everywhere is immense. Because the chapters are so short, ranging from one page to just one sentence, the reader is expected to derive a lot from a little. This would be difficult in some cases, but Tulic truly knows how to craft short, impactful chapters. From the little that she overtly tells, there are endless covert worlds underneath the surface, and simple words turn into something so much deeper and meaningful. I specifically stopped and stared for a long time at a chapter, about 5 or 6 sentences long, about the main character's brother being upset that the hospital does not have enough funds for the mother's treatments, and the main character telling her brother that Patrick Swayze was rich, but also died of cancer. Such a simple thing to say when you put it on paper like that, yet it says so much about the nature of cancer and its ability to kill us no matter who we are, and how some of these laws of nature are so unfortunate and can strike anyone. It also said so much about grief, injustice, poverty, anger, and comforting. I think that will stick with me for a long time, and it takes a skillful author with a knack of understanding emotions to write things like that. To me, Tulic seems to be one of those authors.

[Mare · Rating 5 out of 5]

“Kosa posvuda“ ugodno je književno iznenađenje neugodne životne teme…smrti majke. Tea Tulić napisala je roman u fragmentima kojeg možete pročitati u sat, dva…ali će ostaviti puno, puno dublji i dulji utisak na vas. Svakim fragmentom ona vas uvlači u obiteljsku priču…u mislima vam crta boje i oblike, dočarava zvukove, mirise, okuse…dira vaša srca. Njezine su rečenice kratke, ali pune…fragment po fragment…humora, tuge, svakodnevice…dijelovi života…ciklusi. Život je ipak jači od svega.

[Tina · Rating 5 out of 5]

Jedna od divnijih koje sam pročitala...Bravo Tea!

[Phil · Rating 4 out of 5]

Review of Hair Everywhere by Tea Tulic, translated by Coral Petkovich

Hair Everywhere is about 3 generations of women in the one family, grandmother, mother and daughter, told in short vignettes, many taking up with just a paragraph from the perspective of the daughter. The mother is sick with cancer in hospital while there is a sadness in the grandmother at the illness of her own daughter. Throughout the novel as the illness progresses in the mother, we also see a maturing in the daughter as she grows. This could be both classified as family drama and a coming of age tale.

Coral Petkovich's translation is a clear keeping the text tidy and short to the point prose. Not one word is wasted in it as there isn't many words to the novel but this I thought was a really well laid out and told story. Kudos to both TUlic and Petkovich for making this really readable and likeable despite dealing with illness. They fitted the vignettes into a well made novel, concise but very good.

I liked this book a lot. A really tender story about illness and coming of age

* * * *

[Sanja · Rating 5 out of 5]

Ovu knjigu moze doživjeti ponajprije onaj koji je i sam slično proživio, a ako je povrh toga jos i iz Rijeke, utisak je predubok i prebolan. Poput onih sitnih leglo kockica koje se tako lako izgube, a neophodne su za kompletnu slagalicu, autorica slaže fragmente svog života u odnosu s nonom i majkom, oživljavajući tako uspomenu i sjećanje na tolike sitnice koje lako kliznu kroz misli u zaborav.
Osjetila sam pravi deja-vu u nekoliko situacija, tuga mi je iznova prožela tkivo i podsjetila me na nesto sto se stalno trudim potisnuti- “ostala sam sama”.

[Karlo · Rating 5 out of 5]

Teine knjige su kao mozaici sjećanja i zapažanja gusto ispunjeni sličicama zanimljivih pojedinosti ljudskih odnosa i čudnovatih osjećaja vezanih uz naizgled nebitne stvari svakodnevnice. Ti ispisani ulomci lagani su i poletni motivi, kao udarci kista po platnu, tamo gdje češće prođu emocije su jače i radnja se gradira, dok ostali nadopunjuju pozadinski pejzaž i ozračje. Često umotani u zagonetne i fantastične okolnosti, oni omogućuju poeziji da diše i slobodno se interpretira, istovremeno pričajući Teinu priču.

[Uros De selbi · Rating 4 out of 5]

Malo sam se razočarao na početku. Prošlo je dosta strana a nisam pročitao ništa značajno, kao da ništa posebno nije rečeno.

Onda sam ipak naišao na neke dobre stvari, vredne podvlačenja i pamćenja.

No, sve to odnosu sa majke jeste dirljivo, i dobro je urađeno, patos udara snažno, nema šta, vredi to pročitati jer nas većinu sve to čeka.

Na kraju, mislim da je ova knjiga vredna (malo) vašeg vremena.

[Maja Solar · Rating 5 out of 5]

jedno je kad se o teškim temama piše teškom formom, ali neverovatno je kada ta forma može biti i (naizgled) laka, prozračna i povremeno duhovita, a uspijeva preneti svu težinu : tea je (književna) ljubav 🖤

[Robyn · Rating 3 out of 5]

Tulic captures the experience of loss and family and death in a series of snapshots, where she beautifully and concisely captures the nuances and complexities of these emotions.

It was a bit abstract for me, which made it difficult to both empathize and become attached to any of the characters.

[Carolien · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fragments told from the perspective of the narrator whose mother slowly succumbs to cancer. The fragments reflect the random thoughts and events that occur as life continues accompanied by terminal illness. Well translated.

[Katja · Rating 5 out of 5]

Kratko, ali slatko!
Obožavam ovakav stil pisanja, intiman i unikatan,
zabavan.

[Tamara · Rating 5 out of 5]

Uf. Dobar deo knjige sam čitala sa knedlom u grlu. Sjajno delo, sjajna je Tea.

[Hrvatsko citateljsko drustvo]

piše Marija Ott Franolić, marijaott@gmail.com

Čitateljima preporučam inventivne i odlično napisane priče Kosa posvuda mlade hrvatske spisateljice Tee Tulić. Njezin je jezik pjesnički a stil krajnje reduktivan – sve što je bitno događa se u prazninama i pukotinama teksta. Priče toliko kratke, da bi se gotovo mogle nazvati haiku-pričama, zapravo su obiteljska kronika, priča o majci koja umire od raka. Tea Tulić lirskim jezikom i začudnim metaforama opisuje sitne dnevne događaje, izbjegavajući govoriti direktno o bolesti. Kritizirajući usput suptilno sustav koji pojedinca prepušta vlastitom snalaženju i očaju, autorica se samo se posredno dotiče efekata bolesti koja preobražava cijelu obitelj kao zajednicu, ali i svakog njezinog člana pojedinačno.

(Ova kratka preporuka objavljena je u subotnjoj rubrici Jutarnjeg programa Što čitati tijekom vikenda? na Drugom programu Hrvatskog radija 2015. godine.)

[Ptica Trkačica · Rating 5 out of 5]

retko plane nešto tako istrajno i stameno na savremenoj sceni kao tein glas u ovoj knjizi. zanimljivo je da autorka tvrdi kako ne piše poeziju, a ova knjiga tako vešto manevriše na liniji poetskog i narativnog umeća. ali sve to na stranu, čini mi se da se savremena književnost često deli na kastu koja je zanimljiva književnim kritičarima, i na onu drugu, dostupnu čitocima, a ovde imamo dirljivo delo, otvoreno za sve, toplo i ranjivo, začinjeno cinizmom balkanskih nedaća, dovoljno da se osetimo dobrodošlo.

bravo tea, legendetino, kupila si me, godine prolaze, a ovo još uvek kida

[Jelena Maksimovic · Rating 4 out of 5]

jednostavno, dirljivo, strašno tužno

[Ingeborg · Rating 4 out of 5]

Odlično! Super stil, inventivan. To su ustvari haiku-priče koje, čitane zajedno, opisuju tragičnu obiteljsku situaciju.
Pravo osvježenje!

[Brankica Raković · Rating 5 out of 5]

Dugo ništa ljepše, intenzivnije, minimalističnije i iskrenije nisam pročitala.

[World Literature Today]

"In her slim novel Hair Everywhere, Croatian author Tea Tulić presents a compilation of interconnected, fragmentary prose poems that reflect how one young woman experiences the terminal illness of her middle-aged mother. It is a lyrical study of the ways that the mundane, everyday patterns of our lived lives are colored yet somehow continue even in the face of a looming death." - Lori Feathers

This book was reviewed in the Mar/Apr 2018 issue of World Literature Today magazine. Read the full review by visiting our website:

https://www.worldliteraturetoday.org/...