The Paris Novel
The gorgeously uplifting new novel about living - and eating - deliciously
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4.4 • 14 Ratings
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- £5.99
Publisher Description
'No one writes about food like Ruth Reichl... I consider her essential nourishment.' NIGELLA LAWSON
Ripping open the envelope, she read Celia's last words to her. There was just one line written on the paper: 'Go to Paris.'
The last word anyone would use to describe Stella St. Vincent is adventurous. She's perfectly comfortable with the familiar, strict routines of her life as a copyeditor in New York. Or at least, she is until she receives a mysterious note from her late mother and a one-way plane ticket to Paris.
Alone and overwhelmed in a foreign city, Stella avoids new people and ventures out as little as possible. But then she meets Jules, an octogenarian art collector with very different ideas about how she should spend her time in the French capital. And to start with, there's a vintage Dior dress with her name on it.
Somewhere between the cramped shelves of Shakespeare and Company bookshop, the crisp tablecloths of the Brasserie Les Deux Magots and a pile of discarded paintings at a busy flea market, long-buried truths about Stella's own past begin to emerge. Soon she starts to wonder if there might not have been more to her mother's suggestion than she first suspected...
'Ruth Reichl is one of our greatest storytellers. No one writes as warmly and engagingly about the all-important intersection of food, life, love, and loss.' ALICE WATERS
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Food critic and novelist Reichl (Delicious!) serves up a delectable story of an introverted copy editor's life-changing visit to Paris in the 1980s. Stella St. Vincent's quiet New York City routine is turned upside down when she learns her recently deceased mother, Celia, has bequeathed her a ticket to Paris and the means to stay there for six weeks. Celia had spent time in Paris in her early years, and Stella interprets the gesture as an exhortation for her to be more adventurous. The "Cinderella"-esque plot hinges on Stella's encounter with the proprietor of a Parisian dress shop, who inexplicably lends her a $6,000 Christian Dior dress for one night. Wearing it, she walks with a newfound confidence and sensuality ("With each step, the scent of apricots and vanilla came wafting up"). While enjoying her first oysters at a restaurant, she attracts the attention of elderly art dealer Jules Delatour. The two become fast friends, and Jules brings her around to the Shakespeare and Company bookshop, where she hobnobs with Allen Ginsberg and other famous visitors. The expressive prose makes tangible Stella's awakening as she develops a passion for French culture and cuisine like foie gras: "The flavor grew richer, rounder, louder with each passing second." Reichl serves a feast for the senses.
