PARIS AFFAIRE
The Love Story of a Young Poet and His Angel in the City of Light
by Jean-Thomas Cullen
A financially strapped university student in Paris starts an affair with a sophisticated married woman over the course of one tumultuous year.
Marc Fontbleu is a 23-year-old French student who makes ends meet by mowing lawns. When he glimpses Emma Delors, the wife of a faculty member, walking past him early one morning, his world is rocked. He can’t help but approach beautiful Emma, who reveals that, as usual, her husband is out of town. Emma readily relays that her husband often neglects their marriage in favor of his archaeology studies. Marc and Emma begin a deep and intense affair, spending long hours getting to know each other in and out of bed. They gallivant through parks, restaurants, and the attractions of Paris, falling deeply in love. Marc confesses that he has published poetry under the pseudonym Léopold Montblé and hopes to become famous. Emma worries that she is too old for Marc and should set him free. As they luxuriate in their mutual feelings, they are simultaneously troubled by their own worries about protecting the happiness of the other. Told in the third person, the narrative is broken into four sections based on the temporal seasons and interspersed with short poems and uncredited artwork. There is a heavy emphasis on monologues and dialogue, both internal and external, throughout Cullen’s sentimental story. For the first two-thirds of the book, the main action consists primarily of lengthy conversations between the two central characters. The plot does move more quickly as the novel approaches its conclusion, and if readers can hang on, the tale becomes increasingly engrossing. While there are some stylistic oddities (such as a plethora of parentheses) and errors (like the scene in Chapter 6 in which Emma takes her shoes off after having already removed them), the story features lovely descriptions of French foods, locations, and landmarks. There are also several beautifully rendered moments of human connection and self-sacrifice.
A sweet but slow-moving tale of a love affair in Paris.