Spring Buds

The scene is set in Paris, France, right after President Obama's election in 2008, which spread joy and hope far beyond the US borders. Matt could pass as a typical all-American expatriate, except for his complex biracial background and identity hang-ups. As a French national living in her own country, his quirky wife Bérengère should admittedly have no adjustment issues, yet she finds her old insecurities exacerbated by her new job as an English teacher in a tough suburb of the city. While they both struggle to meet the challenges of any binational, bilingual, and bicultural couple in the fast-changing City of Light, they can count on all their friends and relatives to make things a tad more taxing. For one thing, two years into their marriage the question keeps popping up from everywhere around them: What about having kids? Parrow's novel is as much a chronicle of the couple's progress and tribulations as a vibrant portrait of their different environments, from Bérengère's provincial bourgeois family to her high-spirited students, from Matt's African American expatriate "brothers" to the pair's feisty Parisian neighbors. In the end, whatever the hardships and losses of winter, spring will come around with its assortment of new buds.