Matthew Tétreault’s debut novel, Hold Your Tongue, provides a meditation on the large question of what it means to be Métis through the stories of one family. By playing with language, oral tradition, and family secrets, Tétreault weaves together a charming story about finding one’s place both as a member of a family and as an individual. The novel begins with the protagonist, Richard, learning that his beloved uncle Alfred has had a stroke, and tracks Richard through the trajectory that follows, which includes both emotional processing and the practical tasks of finding his father to give him the news and getting to the hospital to see Alfred.
As Richard works his way through the tasks at hand and simultaneously through his own fear and grief, we see him grapple with his identity as a French/English-speaking Métis person wrestling with conflicting emotions about whether or not to leave his family and his rural hometown for a life in the city with the woman he loves. Richard struggles to come to terms with his own sense of self, his conflicting desires, his family history, and his father’s shame.
The plot works its way through in a nonlinear fashion, with the most powerful emotional beats coming in the form of flashbacks, visions, and family stories that “[grow] taller with every telling.”
Perhaps the most important of these stories shows up for the first time in Chapter Two, “When Alfred Fell Out of a Tree,” and recurs many times throughout Hold Your Tongue. This is Alfred’s story about how he injured his back by falling out of a tree while hunting. In this earliest version of the story, we learn that, after being badly hurt alone in the wilderness, “to keep himself going, [Alfred] began to sing.” This poignant line resonates throughout the entire novel, which constantly emphasizes the importance of language and oral tradition for Métis survival. In this first telling of the story, we also learn that “the reason [for falling] changed every time he told the story, but always there was singing.” This shows us that what is most significant in this story to Alfred is the use of his own voice to persevere through pain and hardship.
Alfred’s story is told multiple times throughout the novel, with details changing every time until finally it reveals a shocking family secret. At first, readers might feel confused as to why Alfred’s story keeps coming up multiple times, but once the truth of the story is revealed, everything comes together and satisfyingly ties off the threads interwoven through the plot. Having the story told and retold in various ways to eventually reveal a secret, points to the significance of the oral tradition in Métis culture. Alfred’s story makes us think about how storytelling is not merely entertainment, but a container for history, culture, and truth. The story is a large part of Alfred’s identity—it is what he regales his niece and nephew with every time they visit and it represents an event in his life that made him who he is today.
The intersection between francophone and English cultures is a major theme, which is most obviously evident in the dialogue. Tétreault’s lively characters speak with ease in both English and French, often slipping seamlessly between the two and using various registers, including French-Canadian, French-Michif, and Standard French. The multilingual dialogue is reminiscent of Cormac McCarthy’s All the Pretty Horses, where the sparse dialogue occasionally turns to Spanish. Prospective readers who are not fluent in French may feel daunted to hear that the French dialogue in Hold Your Tongue is not usually translated into English, but Tétreault’s careful use of context and repetition means that, even if your French is extremely rusty, you will be able to follow along. In fact, the experience is probably better and more engaging if you don’t know the exact meaning of the French phrases, because it prompts you to fully engage with the context and what you already know about the characters. The title Hold Your Tongue is taken from a mistranslated slogan at a protest mentioned early in the book, indicating that mistranslation can actually bear more meaning in the end, so readers needn’t worry about translating every bit of French dialogue perfectly. That being said, it may be difficult for someone with absolutely no French knowledge to follow this book—at least a vague memory of grade-school French vocabulary is ideal (but not absolutely necessary) to get the most out of Hold Your Tongue.
For readers with an interest in family dynamics, Métis culture, Canadian history, the search for identity, and the art of storytelling, Hold Your Tongue is a compelling novel that delivers keen insights on all these themes. Tétreault brings his prose to life with vibrant characters who seem to have walked right out of a rural prairie town into the page. From Alfred’s hearty warmth to Monique’s acid tongue, the reader really gets to know and love Tétreault’s characters throughout the course of the book, and to understand Richard’s simultaneous attachment to and frustration with them. The novel’s nonlinear, sprawling-yet-focused structure is also striking, particularly for a debut novel, leaving the reader eagerly anticipating what Tétreault will do next.
Hold Your Tongue
by Matthew Tétreault
NeWest Press, May 2023, 270 p.p., $22.95 (print)
ISBN: 978-1-77439-071-9
Rosalie Morris is a writer and editor based in British Columbia. Her work can be found in various literary magazines and she is the author of the Substack newsletter Intimate Publics.