I read this book in Seattle a few years ago. Talk about a perfect title. You see it and instantly the heart of this book is communicated with a chuckle. I like travel stories, expat stories, lost in a big new world stories. This is all of the above, told by a young American woman in Paris with few cares and marginally more cash. This isn’t a Down and Out experience, necessarily, but on the surface it’s innocent Bohemia at its best.
What a voice we have in the blonde dud. That’s what I remember most of this book. The gallivanting, the sulking soaks in the bathtub, the men, the drinks, the city. It was dazzling and scary and over her head, as a narrator, and maybe for us too, as the reader. That kind of youth doesn’t last, though, this kind of life is gilded because it’s so fleeting. We all see that on these pages.
Her follow up to this book has recently been published by NYRB and I’m excited to add it to the ever growing to read list.
