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A review by ridgewaygirl
The Paris Hours by Alex George
2.0
As she turned the first page, a single tear fell onto the still paper, washing the words beneath it into gentle oblivion, lost forever to her sorrow.
Set in 1927, this novel follows four characters as they live their romantically tragic lives walking around Paris and interacting with famous people. Each feels their emotions deeply and is able to get advice and insight from everyone from Josephine Baker to Marcel Proust. There's Souren, a young man who escaped the Armenian genocide and now puts on a puppet show in the Luxembourg Gardens. Camille was Marcel Proust's maid and she deeply misses her former employer, even as she harbors a terrible secret. Jean-Paul lost his wife and infant daughter to a bomb, and because his daughter's body was never found, he continues to search for her. And
Guillaume is an artist who is still struggling after years of work. He fell in love with an acrobat he watched perform and is deeply in debt to a violent loan shark.
Over the course of a single day, the four characters walk around Paris, frequently noting where they are and what they can see from their vantage point, as they think their tragic thoughts and slowly circle each other, until they finally all converge at a single nightclub where tragedy is about to strike.
Yeah, I didn't like this one at all. I have a high tolerance for anything set in Paris, but the market seems to be dictating that novels set there indulge in an exaggerated sentimentality and an emphasis in mentioning locations as though the reader is on a bus tour of Paris. There are some fantastic recent novels set in Paris, like Paris, 7 A.M. by Liza Wieland or Paris Echo by Sebastian Faulks, but for the large majority, referring to the city in the title is a message about not just the setting, but also the kind of book it will be, unabashedly treacly and filled with heightened emotion. Will I stop jumping on novels with Paris in the title? Probably not. But the likelihood of finding a well-written novel where Paris is something other than a sparkling stage set is becoming rarer by the day.
Set in 1927, this novel follows four characters as they live their romantically tragic lives walking around Paris and interacting with famous people. Each feels their emotions deeply and is able to get advice and insight from everyone from Josephine Baker to Marcel Proust. There's Souren, a young man who escaped the Armenian genocide and now puts on a puppet show in the Luxembourg Gardens. Camille was Marcel Proust's maid and she deeply misses her former employer, even as she harbors a terrible secret. Jean-Paul lost his wife and infant daughter to a bomb, and because his daughter's body was never found, he continues to search for her. And
Guillaume is an artist who is still struggling after years of work. He fell in love with an acrobat he watched perform and is deeply in debt to a violent loan shark.
Over the course of a single day, the four characters walk around Paris, frequently noting where they are and what they can see from their vantage point, as they think their tragic thoughts and slowly circle each other, until they finally all converge at a single nightclub where tragedy is about to strike.
Yeah, I didn't like this one at all. I have a high tolerance for anything set in Paris, but the market seems to be dictating that novels set there indulge in an exaggerated sentimentality and an emphasis in mentioning locations as though the reader is on a bus tour of Paris. There are some fantastic recent novels set in Paris, like Paris, 7 A.M. by Liza Wieland or Paris Echo by Sebastian Faulks, but for the large majority, referring to the city in the title is a message about not just the setting, but also the kind of book it will be, unabashedly treacly and filled with heightened emotion. Will I stop jumping on novels with Paris in the title? Probably not. But the likelihood of finding a well-written novel where Paris is something other than a sparkling stage set is becoming rarer by the day.