Paris Was Ours [Deckle Edge] [Paperback]

Penelope Rowlands (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: February 8, 2011

Paris is “the world capital of memory and desire,” concludes one of the writers in this intimate and insightful collection of memoirs of the city. Living in Paris changed these writers forever.

In thirty-two personal essays—more than half of which are here published for the first time—the writers describe how they were seduced by Paris and then began to see things differently. They came to write, to cook, to find love, to study, to raise children, to escape, or to live the way it’s done in French movies; they came from the United States, Canada, and England; from Iran, Iraq, and Cuba; and—a few—from other parts of France. And they stayed, not as tourists, but for a long time; some are still living there. They were outsiders who became insiders, who here share their observations and revelations. Some are well-known writers: Diane Johnson, David Sedaris, Judith Thurman, Joe Queenan, and Edmund White. Others may be lesser known but are no less passionate on the subject.

Together, their reflections add up to an unusually perceptive and multifaceted portrait of a city that is entrancing, at times exasperating, but always fascinating. They remind us that Paris belongs to everyone it has touched, and to each in a different way.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

In original and previously published essays, 32 diverse writers share both exciting and depressing Paris moments. Diane Johnson, evaluating French stereotypes, was surprised that French hostesses serve store-bought entrees. Jeremy Mercer was taken in by the owner of the famous bookstore Shakespeare & Co., living there rent-free (downstairs œwith the riffraff, and Janine di Giovanni saw French mothers hit their children to enforce good manners. In three of the most substantial essays, Alicia Drake muses on the disconcerting ability of the French to accept human faults as she visits sites from which the Nazis, aided by French police, deported Jews to their deaths; Stacy Schiff finds that picking up the dry cleaning was less of a chore when done on ground Ben Franklin and John Adams trod before her; and Roxane Farmanfarmaian escaped revolutionary Iran for springtime in Paris. Many of the original pieces are wordy, mired in mundaneness, and lacking forceful editing by journalist Rowlands (A Dash of Daring: Carmel Snow and Her Life in Fashion, Arts and Letters), But overall this book should strike a chord in those harboring love/hate relationships with Paris and Parisians. (Feb.)
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From Booklist

Rowlands compiles into one volume 32 works, about half of which have never been seen before, by different writers who relay their experiences of living in Paris. Although the contributors are as mixed a bag as the City of Light’s 20 arrondissements, they report universal similarities: In Paris, the customer is, if ever, only rarely “right.” The city’s taunting, melancholy beauty is unsurpassed. And any moment passed in the Luxembourg Gardens can be considered time well spent. Rowlands does a seamless job of presenting a city as seen by so many eyes (those of David Sedaris, Stacey Schiff, and Zoé Valdés, to name a few) that readers who’ve visited will recognize their own memories, and those who haven’t will glean a globally in-depth portrait. (The piece by a Parisian single-mom, blogging about her homelessness, is particularly poignant.) Judith Thurman perhaps sums up the whole endeavor best when she writes that “one of the greatest charms of having lived in Paris is the Proustian glamour of being able to claim that one did so.” --Annie Bostrom

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Product Details

• Paperback: 288 pages
• Publisher: Algonquin Books; Original edition (February 8, 2011)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1565129539
• ISBN-13: 978-1565129535
• Product Dimensions: 5.7 x 0.9 x 8.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 11.2 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (40 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #60,702 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #54 in Books > Travel > Europe > France > Paris
  • #68 in Books > Politics & Social Sciences > Social Sciences > Customs & Traditions

More About the Author

I was born in London and raised there and in New York City. Two parents of two nationalities on two continents -- you get the idea. Naturally, I escaped (recurrently) to France.... Paris, to be exact. Which is the actual subject of my latest book, Paris Was Ours, a collection of memoirs of the city, many of them commissioned by me and published for the first time, by some amazing writers from all over the world. (I also wrote one of the essays.)

As for background, I'm an author and journalist who relishes writing non-fiction for numerous reasons, the main one being that I like / love the challenge of describing things as accurately as I can -- trying to make sense of it all -- while writing in a way that (I hope) people want to read. I always, always learn along the way. I've written for a lot of publications, Vogue, Architectural Digest, The Daily Beast, and The New York Times among them, and I've bounced around a bit in the world. My hopes for the future? Exactly that: More articles, more books, more travel. I'll keep you posted....

(So will Twitter! Look for me there at @penrowl)

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

73 of 73 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars At last... March 10, 2011

By Barbara J. Murray

Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase

Having spent a year living in Paris with two school-aged children, I am glad to finally read a book about the city that does not simply sing its praises. The premise, in the form of many essays, is that for good, bad, or in-between, Paris affected the lives of the writers permanently. The essays are refreshing, honest, and, for the most part, well-written. We have been back for 7 months now, and people still greet me with "How wonderful it was for you to get to live in Paris for a year" or "I am so jealous" etc. This usually comes from people who have spent a week or three in the city, or lived there when younger without children. After feeling alone with my very mixed feelings for all of this time, I finally have some "friends". Friends who know what it is really like for ex-pats, and can articulate the contrast between the perception of Paris strangers often have, and the reality. Like anywhere else, Paris, especially for foreigners with children, is a mixed bag. This book, through its diverse accounts of that city and its people brings that point home. Black, white, and shades of gray. A little magic at times, a lot of obstacles at others. As a whole, "Paris was Ours" brings together the many different experiences of people in a city that is often romanticized. The essays are funny, sad, informative, and for me, a little bit redemptive. I recommend it highly.

40 of 43 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars A Reality Check on a Romantic Icon June 7, 2011

By Former English Major

Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase

To many Americans, Paris is gloss. Television series - Sex in the CIty, Gossip Girl and even the sturdy medical drama ER - use it as an exotic backdrop. Woody Allen's new "Midnight in Paris" conjures up the bohemian fantasy that Paris still represents, although more avant garde types are now inclined to view Prague (ironically, the actual, original Bohemia) as closer to the spirit of Paris in the 1920's and 1950's. But Carrie Bradshaw, Blair Waldorf and Woody Allen's stock characters are brief visitors who parachute in and just as abruptly leave. In "Paris Was Ours," editor Penelope Rowlands collects 32 writers who are determined to live in Paris among Parisians, rather than skim the surface as privileged tourists or circulate in tight hermetic expatriate communities as Hemingway and Fitzgerald did.

Beyond artistic inspiration, in the twentieth century Paris represented personal freedom (and an insanely favorable exchange rate) for the "Lost Generation" of the 1920's who were stultified by Prohibition, and relief from racial discrimination for African-American artists ( James Baldwin, Nina Simone) in the 1950s and 60s. It is not clear what drives Americans to want to experience Paris today, and "Paris Was Ours" does not shed much light on that issue. In that regard, the most disappointing chapter comes from one of the more famous contributors, David Sedaris, whose scant essay is predictably humorous (and scatalogical) but could have been written anywhere. Instead, some of the more compelling chapters are those written by non-Americans. To Roxane Farmanfarmaian, Paris offers political freedom and escape from the revolutionary Iran of the late 1970s. Zoe Valdes is by fortunate happenstance sent to Paris as a form of diplomatic exile by a Cuban government so doctrinaire in the 1980's that "in the minds of the Communists, the reward was Moscow - Paris was a punishment."

Readers who have endeavored to live in Paris may well remember - and secretly enjoy - the frustrations that the authors chronicle in daily life. Rowlands herself is refused a hard-boiled egg by a waiter because she is unable to pronounce a difficult vowel. An English schoolgirl is slapped at Versailles by a French passserby for straying onto the grass; the incident is all the more remarkable because the slappee is a daughter of Lady Antonia Fraser. But these obstacles (and insults) are cherished battle scars and only serve to deepen the magnetic draw to Paris. In the end, Rowlands has the title backward. Paris was not theirs; instead, they ended up belonging to Paris.

18 of 20 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars Delightful and multifaceted April 16, 2011

By Harold S. Levine

Format:Kindle Edition|Amazon Verified Purchase

So often these books about Paris are superficial and uncritical, but Rowland's book delves beneath the surface to portray a living city not always (or perhaps, rarely) welcoming of the outsider, but nonetheless endlessly fascinating to foreigners. I just returned from Paris two weeks ago, and this book makes me want to hail a cab to the airport and return "tout de suite."