There Was Still Love by Favel Parrett
Looking back at earlier reviews I found that it was in 2015 that I read Past the Shallows and When the Night Comes by Favel Parrett. Both novels that I loved, and I looked forward to reading more from this author. Finally, we have There Was Still Love.
One of things I loved most about her earlier work was this authors ability to write through the eyes of children. Children who may not always understand their parents, but who often comprehend far more than their elders know.
In this novel we follow the lives of two children, a young girl, living with her Grandma and Grandpa, in Melbourne, Australia. And young Ludek, a boy, living with his Babi and his uncles in Prague. Ludek’s mother is a member of a Czech theatrical troupe and is often travelling – often to western counties, always alone and always returning to Prague.
There are sometimes phone calls, and even visits by Aunty Mana from Melbourne - from the West – to visit her family in Prague. There are festive meals of schnitzels, and pickles, and fried potato, and cucumber and cream salad. Visits full of eating and talking, and smoking and car trips, and stories and reminiscing and crying, and love.
We observe the contrast, of one family living with the restrictions and depravations of Communism, the other in the freedom and relative affluence they have found in Australia.
About halfway through the novel we learn who this Grandma and Babi were to each other in the past. We learn about their experiences in the fall of 1942 and how that changed the course of their future lives then, and later as the Iron Curtain descends.
There Was Still Love is truly a lovely novel, about the connection of family who shared past experiences, and of love that continues despite distance and separation.