Review by New York Times Review
As charming and unpredictable as a stroll through Paris, this little book consists of 19 short tales - five of them in fact prose poems (by Julien Green, Jean Follain and others) - which take place on specific streets in neighborhoods all over town and sometimes zoom out for a view of the marvelous whole (as in Roland Dorgelès's "Rooftop Over the Champs-Élysées"). Each text is paired with a black-andwhite photograph of a Parisian street scene or another visual image suggested by the narrative. A Manet drawing of a coachman transports us into Maupassant's "The Rendezvous." The front page of Le Petit Parisien, Jan. 7, 1912, introduces Colette's "Holdup in the Rue Ordener." The face of a painted wooden Christ casts a sad glance over Marcel Aymé's delightfully irreverent "Rue Saint-Sulpice," in which a starving pianist, recently jailed for stabbing a violinist, is hired to portray Jesus in a series of "sacred images" and ends up walking, very briefly, on the Seine. Zola, Simenon and more-contemporary voices guide our wanderings, expertly translated by Constantine, whose introduction parses the history of Parisian geography. She adds notes, author biographies, a map and a list of resources for further exploration and dedicates the book to the victims of the "unspeakable events" at Charlie Hebdo, the Bataclan and other venues, and "to the brave Parisians who, in spite of the threats of barbarians, daily assert their right to walk in freedom in the streets of their city."
Copyright (c) The New York Times Company [January 1, 2017]
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
Constantine's anthology, her third in the City Tales series to explore Paris, features two centuries of stories focused specifically on Parisian streets. In the opening tale by Didier Daeninckx, "Rue des Degrés," a man is found murdered, and the subsequent investigation uncovers an unsavory past filled with ambitions that led to his demise. Although crime is a common theme throughout the collection, a few stories reflect on the nostalgia and sense of comfort Paris can bring. In "Old Iron" by Émile Zola a shopkeeper gives a journalist a crash course in Paris history through his collection of junk plucked from the Seine. Many of the authors here will be new to American readers, while others-Guy de Maupassant, Marcel Aymé, Sidonie-Gabrielle Colette, Georges Simenon-will be more familiar. In one of the collection's most powerful stories, "The Street Is Not Enough" by Aurélie Filippetti, a community angrily complains about the poor underclass moving in, with an ending, that lands like a punch to the gut. Often moody and always eccentric, the collection-dedicated to the memory of Parisians killed in recent attacks at Charlie Hebdo and the Bataclan-uncovers the dark and light corners hidden in a city of interesting characters and exuberant history. (Nov.) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
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