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Thursday, March 29, 2012

Paris Lived in the Moment


I just finished a fun little book that I read in advance of publication. I want to be the first to praise Paris in Love by Eloisa James, set for release on April 3. This book was a pleasurable jaunt through a year in Paris with a delightful family of four. The two professor parents, their 14-year-old son, 11-year-old daughter and one very overweight dog gave up their suburban life outside New York City for a fourth story apartment in the 9th arrondissement of Paris for one year. The author has just lost her mother to cancer and survived her own bout with breast cancer. She consciously decided to live in the moment. This memoir is written in a series of very short blog-like posts (many originally Facebook posts) and essays, which chronicle the family’s adventures in the city of light. The author writes, “For the most part, I have retained the short form, the small explosion of experience, as it best gives the flavor of my days.”
Eloisa James is the pen name of Mary Bly, a Shakespeare professor at Fordham University with degrees from Harvard, Oxford and Yale. She is also the daughter of the revered American writers Robert and Carol Bly. She never directly says in this in her book, but you get the idea that she lives two very different writing lives. Mary Bly is a well-respected Shakespeare scholar and Eloisa James is a best selling romance novelist. I think Mary decided to become Eloisa for a year as she took a sabbatical and focused on the delicious pleasures of everyday life.
I got very interested in a voyeuristic way in Eloisa/Mary’s writing life. I loved reading about her procrastinating by buying lingerie and chocolates on the streets of Paris, and entertaining what seemed like an endless stream of visitors from home. Hearing about her children’s complaints and adjustments to life in Paris was reassuring (since I have my own querulous teenagers). It was enjoyable to read about her imperfect parenting and struggles to keep her children happy while letting them live through failures – both academic and social. Throughout all these distractions, Eloisa/Mary continued to write. She became my writing hero as she completed an academic article and a book despite the endless temptations she faced in her year in Paris. I don’t think I could buckle down and focus on not one but two writing projects with the temptations of Paris just outside my window. So, I give kudos to Eloisa James/Mary Bly for this enjoyable book brimming with an appreciation for life.

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