Surviving Paris A memoir of healing in the city of light

Unexpected challenges for an expat. After she was overlooked for a job promotion, Emmy Award--winning journalist and television producer Davis moved to Paris in 2016, hoping to escape from her "good but routine" life and embark on a fulfilling career. As she recounts in her candid debut memoir, the move thrust her into a starkly challenging reality. Before applying for what she hoped would be her dream job, she went back to school, earning a master's degree in global communications at the American University of Paris. But despite having strong credentials, she was faced with a dismal job market, forced to take short-term low-paying internships just to maintain a visa. Housing was another problem: What she found were tiny, seedy apartments--one infested with mice; by 2020, she was in her fifth apartment. But her biggest challenge was medical. In 2018, she was diagnosed with breast cancer. The title Davis chose for her memoir refers to physical as well as emotional survival: nine surgical procedures over five years in a health care system that made her feel unheard, "dragged along without agency over my body, my health," she writes. After a mastectomy, reconstruction, and removal of lymph nodes, impending chemotherapy and radiation finally incited her to speak up. Fearing that chemotherapy would compromise her fertility, she insisted on freezing her eggs. Davis also writes about dating and forging a sense of community as a Black woman in a new culture. "Living in France," she notes, "I'd had my fair share of 'Was this person racist to me or just rude?'--even more than I did in the US." Still, she has persisted, determined to survive and thrive in a place she has grown to love. A frank chronicle of pain and hard-won recovery. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.