Autant

by Paulette Dube

In a temporal arc from 1946 through to 2002 the Morasse family from Autant, Alberta had an intimate relationship with life, God, bees, and honey. Autant is a story with big questions such as how to determine the balance of power between siblings, how to make an excellent mead, how to distinguish between seen and unseen forces of good and evil, between perception and reality, between loyalty and traitors, between what we are taught and what we actually learn. The discourse and path for answers lies in the family history and the family history is caught up in some of its own big questions like who gets to see the angels, and how impressive is the magic of bees. Does God make mistakes, and do angels weep moth tears? And then there are the mysteries created by family elder Edgar Joseph Morasse's Bee Logs, and why he eventually wrote "ao't - hot, dry, no rain, little or no wind most days. Bees swarmed. Burned the hives. Bees have not returned."

Part chronicle and part myth, and poised between the ever-practical God and quixotically old Coyote, Autant is a tale told to explain the disappearance of bees in northern Alberta and becomes a sometimes not-so-subtle exploration of how old and young, male and female, humans and non-humans perceive love.

114 pages, Paperback

Published May 1, 2018

Reviews

[Jenny · Rating 1 out of 5]

SPOILERS. Well that was weird and sad and dark. I thought it was about a French Canadian family, which it is based around, however there is a weird bet between God and the devil, and angels are sent to the family, trying to get possession of bees. Basically a great big trip, with a bit of adolescent rape and two senseless deaths thrown in for good measure. Not my kind of read at all.

[Fay · Rating 3 out of 5]

Very complex story. I read it twice to try and follow everything.

[Patricia Gaudette]

I liked it but not one of my faves