French Seduction: An American's Encounter with France, Her Father, and the Holocaust [Hardcover]

Eunice Lipton (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: 2007

In this passionate blend of autobiography and cultural history, love and sex and art collide with hatred, withering French xenophobia, and death. How does Paris, with all its faults, remain not only the world's most visited tourist destination, but also the locus of endless sexual fantasy and the very image of the good life for Americans, and for writer and art historian Eunice Lipton? In sensual and intellectually thrilling prose, Lipton explores how her Eastern European father lured her to France across his fantasies, and then how she surrendered to the food, the textures and smells, the art, and the astonishingly maternal French state. But she is also forced to confront the anti-Semitism of the Dreyfus Affair that lay beneath the dazzling light of Impressionism; the racial disdain of France's Roaring Twenties; and the unspeakable poverty of peasant life that paid for the luxury of eighteenth-century Versailles. And how can a Jewish woman forgive France for its betrayal of its Jews to the Nazis? Lipton, one of our most respected cultural historians, deftly dissects her love-hate relationship with France, transporting the Francophile in all of us back to that first love, and then way beyond to something startlingly new.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Spurred, in part, by her father's unrealized dreams, art historian Lipton (Alias Olympia: A Woman's Search for Manet's Notorious Model and Her Own Desire) left New York for Paris with her husband, a painter, in 2000. In this extended meditation, she gracefully weaves together her eclectic feelings of love and fury toward her father, a Jew who immigrated to the U.S. from Latvia, and toward her seductive adopted country. She considers the widespread French collaboration with the Germans during WWII—and finds echoes in how the French have treated immigrant Algerians and now the substantial ghettoized Muslim minority, as well as the country's persistent anti-Semitism. Drawing on her deep knowledge and love of French art, she includes reproductions of some of her favorite paintings and sculptures through the centuries. She believes that the French mistreated even Picasso, just as they do so many (non-French) "Others," and that they seem to have abandoned once vibrant art, literature and creativity. Passionate, critical and discursive, this account feels very French. (Feb.15)
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From Booklist

Lipton, the author of Alias Olympia (1993) and other books, is an art historian who divides her time between New York and Paris. Her love of France is encumbered by that nation's long history of anti-Semitism. Reflecting on World War II, she posits that the "French police were better, for example, at rounding up Jews than the Nazis. When the French turned their backs on the Jews, they were perhaps expressing what they had always felt--Jews were not French at all." "Why am I so angry?" Lipton asks. "Didn't I know the French were anti-Semites? Everybody else knows." She then explains why she lives in France with her husband, saying, "The crepes on the street, the roasting chickens, the cheeses, the tarts, the perfumed men and women. These are the aromas that you don't simply inhale and forget." The book also deals with the author's emotional tie to her father. This is truly a love-hate relationship with France, told with compassion and sensitivity. George Cohen
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 224 pages
• Publisher: Carroll & Graf Publishers (2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0786716266
• ISBN-13: 978-0786716265
• Product Dimensions: 8.2 x 5.6 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 13.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (7 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,865,479 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Thought provoking info on the French, July 12, 2009

By 

Dahveed (USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: French Seduction: An American's Encounter with France, Her Father, and the Holocaust (Hardcover)

I really enjoyed this book. The information on French culture and history was interesting, especially since I am considering a month-long trip to Paris sometime soon. I also like how the author wove her personal biography into the mix which enriched and enhanced the read. And, I admire how eloquently she presented her mixed feelings about French history and the France of today and her recognition of their unapologetic antisemitic and racist attitudes. Who knew? The chapter entitled "Mother" was my favorite. Recommended to anyone interested in hearing the experience of an insightful and sensitive American expat intellectual currently living in France.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A fine companion for a few hours, August 19, 2008

By 

George Goldberg (Tucson, AZ United States) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: French Seduction: An American's Encounter with France, Her Father, and the Holocaust (Hardcover)

I found the author a fine companion for the few hours it took to read this small book. The writing is good, sometimes moving, without being overwrought. I have spent a lot of time in France, mostly in Paris, Normandy and Alsace, also in the Champagne region, but not recently. I try to follow developments there in the press and welcome the more personal touch this book exemplifies. I was so taken with some passages that I read them aloud to my wife, whose father was French. Bravo Ms. Lipton!

4.0 out of 5 stars Exemplar of Art Criticism, April 19, 2011

By 

Kimberly Brown (San Diego, CA United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: French Seduction: An American's Encounter with France, Her Father, and the Holocaust (Hardcover)

Preparing to visit Paris for the first time, I searched for writing on the city and its culture. Most of what I found were gastronomical travelogues (and A Moveable Feast). Then I found this insightful, engaging book.

I am one of those who cannot articulate my reactions to paintings,though I studied film production and "get" the performing arts and literature. Ms. Lipton's approach to art history helped me understand why I liked Monet when I was twelve and then gradually didn't any more. It didn't seem like I simply changed preferences; the impressionists just don't jive with who I am or the evolution of my value system as I matured. But I didn't know that's what it was.

The blend of art history with memoir with travelogue is remarkably well done. The best part for me was that in the enquiry into her enduring love of France despite its treatment of the...deracine, is it?...she didn't abandon herself. There were paragraphs and sections others might have written with more neutrality instead of passion and self exposure. Or anger. I imagine she made some very brave line edits.

And when I finally did see Chagall's ceiling at the Opera House, the sight was couched in a better appreciation for what a triumph that painting really is.