Past Tense
BOOK REVIEW
Past Tense: Facing Family Secrets and Finding Myself in Therapy – Sacha Mardou
A lachrymose testimonial to facing unhealed family trauma
It is only in recent years that I have come to appreciate how devitalizing it is to carry traumatic experiences from one’s youth into adulthood. I’ve seen this in the case of friends whose personal philosophies are wholly shaped, sometimes subconsciously, by hurtful memories that remain raw and tender. Over time and through deep conversations with many of them, I feel increasingly empathetic, although I simultaneously count myself fortunate that I don’t recognize any such psychological burden within myself. Growing up, our direct family felt small but my parents showered my sister and I with a wonderful mix of love and determined encouragement. Hence reading author Sacha Mardou’s story was soberingly vicarious.
“It’s just been hard for me to talk about. So my Dad…he’s a sex offender. He went to prison in 1986 for abusing my stepsister.”
In Past Tense, a graphic novel, Sacha tells of her struggle with crippling anxiety, which she realizes is rooted in her volatile upbringing. Her abusive and unfaithful father guiltlessly tore the family apart, with Sacha also living through the extraordinary twist of her parents effectively swapping partners with their neighbours, leaving her in an entirely disjointed home. Then, one day after school, Sacha is told that her father has been sent to prison for sexually abusing her stepsister. The stepsister, a troubled girl who bullies Sacha, temporarily shares a bedroom with her and makes salacious comments about her father’s ignominious behaviour. Years later, as a desperate 40-year-old, Sacha turns to therapy to process the daily apprehension for her own child’s well-being. It naturally segues into a psychoanalysis of Sacha’s perception of her mother, another unsettled relationship. Therapy helps Sacha feel compassion for her mother’s choices - even those that impacted Sacha dramatically - by recognizing the horrific effect of living through a world war. Sacha realizes this is what contributed to her mother's extreme pivot to religion. It is an incredible story of familial trauma that clearly required deep courage to seek professional help, moreso to then publish it in book form.
“After the war, there were never any stories of ‘blitz spirit’ from my grandmother. She particularly hated the smelly, crowded public air raid shelters where young women routinely endured groping and sexual harassment.”
Graphic novels usually enjoy an experiential benefit in that their format enables readers to flip through pages much more swiftly than a traditional novel. However, in the case of Past Tense my reading speed may have detracted from the intensity of Sacha’s feelings as she revisited her childhood. There were moments in her therapy which seemed to signify a powerful breakthrough but didn’t dislodge my heart as happened frequently when ruminating on her father’s behaviour early in the book. A graphic novel’s visual aids can also heighten the story’s emotiveness but in a book like Past Tense, most emotional thrust originates from the dialogue and Sacha’s self-talk reflection after her therapy sessions.
Past Tense is an edifying account of how therapy can heal open wounds, even those that trace back generations and comprise complicated circumstances. The person who inspired me to read it said she felt “completely seen” by the author and gifted copies to her own two sisters, in what she hopes will be the beginning of a similar journey of healing for their own family. In that sense, the book is not just a leisure read but rather can be a tool in a reader’s mental first aid kit.
- NP, January 2025