Paris Without Her
A Memoir
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- $15.99
Publisher Description
In this moving, tender memoir of losing a beloved spouse, the longtime editor of Texas Monthly, newly widowed, returns alone to a city whose enchantment he's only ever shared with his wife, in search of solace, memories, and the courage to find a way forward.
At the age of sixty-six, after thirty-five years of marriage, Gregory Curtis finds himself a widower. Tracy--with whom he fell in love the first time he saw her--has succumbed to a long battle with cancer. Paralyzed by grief, agonized by social interaction, Curtis turns to watching magic lessons on DVD--"a pathetic, almost comical substitute" for his evenings with Tracy.
To break the spell, he returns to the place he had the "best and happiest times" of his life. As he navigates the storied city and contemplates his new future, Curtis relives his days in Paris with Tracy, piecing together the portrait of a woman, a marriage, parenthood, and his life's great love through the memories of six unforgettable trips to the City of Lights.
Alone in Paris, Curtis becomes a tireless wanderer, exploring the city's grand boulevards and forgotten corners as he confronts the bewildering emotional state that ensues after losing a life partner. Paris Without Her is a work of tremendous courage and insight--an ode to the lovely woman who was his wife, to a magnificent city, and to the self we might invent, and reinvent, there.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
In this tender if uneven memoir, Texas Monthly editor Curtis (The Cave Painters) sifts through the memories of a 35-year marriage cut short by the death of his wife and his struggles to forge ahead alone. After his wife, Tracy, died of cancer, Curtis, 66, spent most nights at home alone replaying memories of his marriage, many of which, he realized, happened in Paris. Curtis then recounts how the trips the pair took to the city kept the magic in their marriage; they experienced new firsts, pretended to be native Parisians, visited "a spectacle" (a sex show), and bought glamorous clothes they wore every day in Paris, but were left unworn in their hometown of Austin. However, after Curtis's account of his last trip to Paris with Tracy, the narrative loses steam as it pivots from a dramatic love story to Curtis's life as a self-described "flaneur," wandering the streets of Paris on subsequent visits without Tracy and thus, to him, without aim. His observations of Paris, though painstakingly detailed (readers get a turn by turn tour of countless Parisian boulevards and corners), frequently fall flat and tend to revolve around lackadaisical descriptions of attractive women he sees on the street. Nonetheless, Francophiles may enjoy this detailed tour of the City of Light.
