The story opens with Simon Muchat and his live in girlfriend Claire arguing over whether to continue their relationship by advancing it with the purchase of a home. Simon decides to not discuss it and Claire takes her cue from Simon as a "no." Simon decides to travel to Portugal, the land his grandparents emigrated to France from, for a comics convention. There he feels an attachment to the people he meets even though they are different from him and speak another language. Upon his return to France, Simon and his father attend a family wedding of Simon's cousin Agnes whom Simon has not seen in 20 years. A third of the book concerns the interactions of the family members during the wedding celebration week.
The family dynamics are what make this book. It is an accurate depiction of what I think most families are like. Each generation seems fractured by how they were raised. The grandparents who emigrated from Portugal to France pined for their home in Portugal and the reader never discovers why they left although there is speculation. The grandmother spent her whole life crying for everything she left behind. The grandfather only communicated with the oldest child because he was born in Portugal. The rest of the children were born in France so there is some sibling rivalry over the oldest being the favorite. When these children grew up and had their own families they were not close families. However, during the wedding celebration week, the children of the immigrants spent every minute of every day together reminiscing, making new memories and a little fighting. They enjoyed each other's company though.
Simon then decides to return to Portugal to meet his relatives. He stays in his uncle's home, which was formerly owned by his grandfather before he emigrated to France. Here he discovers his family's history and ponders the reason why the men in the family are unable to pursue happiness, including himself.
The artwork is done is very dark colors, so dark that it is difficult to see the faces of the people in the drawings. The drawings themselves are loose. They look like pen drawings colored over with watercolor paint and are not detailed. Each character's face is unhappy. I am not sure if that is intentional due to how they are feeling or if this is the author's style. It seems unusual to me that every character looks depressed. However, during the last third of the book when Simon was in Portugal, the colors used were light. Obviously, the author used color to reflect the characters' emotions.
This book was rather depressing. I enjoyed the middle part of the book when the celebration of Agnes' wedding occurred. However, the book is about Simon. I could not feel any sympathy for him as a character. The drawings of him did not make him look very likable and the colors that the author used for the Simon scenes were not attractive. I enjoyed Simon's search for his family's roots which is what the book is really about but the characters were unappealing and that detracted from the story.
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