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= Paris Affaire =
Love Story of a Young Poet and His Angel in the City of Light
by Jean-Thomas Cullen
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= Synopsis of the Story =
This is the story of a young Poet and his Angel in the City of Light. They are both Parisian, but from opposite sides of the Métro tracks. This 2017 novel Paris Affaire is a remake of a 1976 novel by this author. That's a fascinating story in itself, spanning about 40 years, and I'll discuss it shortly in these pages.
For reasons that will be apparent to readers of Paris Affaire, the catastrophic fire in the Notre Dame de Paris Cathedral came as a shock to me because in the novel's plot, that great church plays a critical role at the climactic moment for the hero and heroine. I can't say more without giving away key plot elements. I briefly changed the novel's title to The Bells of Notre Dame, but found it better to stay with the 2017 title you see here.
Here is a brief story description for you, which will hopefully whet your interest and get you to start reading the novel. Marc, 23, is a handsome, sensitive young poet and rebel struggling to survive (taxi driver, bar tender, lawn mower, bookstore clerk around the Latin Quarter and environs) while writing vignettes and cascades of lyric verse.
Emma, 30, is a wealthy, beautiful, classy faculty wife and former fashion model whose husband has abandoned her emotionally. Her husband is a paleontologist on a long term dig in Australia, who is playing around with not only ancient bones but also fresh young ones around clubs and beaches of Sydney and Melbourne. Lately, he has called from thousands of miles away to tell her he has found another girl, while making long-distance noises about divorcing Emma.
Emma, a young-looking beauty, has been alone too long. She has been faithful, living in her family's expensive and rambling, empty apartments in the City. When Marc happens into her life, things click instantly. They run to each other's arms with passion, joy, and hunger.
Together, Marc and Emma live in a bubble without time, where the clocks have no numbers but the seconds and minutes are sweeping toward some dark, inevitable fate. In the moment, they pursue love with all the joy and faith in their youthful hearts. But there is always a shadow of trepidation that their happiness in Paris may not last.
He is her poet, and she is his angel. Together, they make music along the same boulevards and streets that still bear haunting strains of Ravel or Debussy and verses of Verlaine or Apollinaire. Countless great artists have come here for centuries to walk in the covered passages and drink from fountains of inspiration. Can Marc and Emma overcome the differences that fate has thrown between them? Will their love last forever or just the one year told in this story?
This is a young people's story—quirky, happy, poetic, literary, sad, reckless, joyful. It's a roller coaster ride of emotions leading to an ending you will not see coming in a million years. Nothing lasts forever—not in Paris, not in this life. As the French say: C'est la vie. That's life. Enjoy every minute, every hour to the fullest. And be prepared: hold on to your socks, because other trains are on their way to this station, other eyes and faces linger thoughtfully in rainy windows, looking wistfully forward to… the surprise of your life as the novel winds its way to a stunning conclusion nobody saw coming, though the truth was there all along, hidden in plain sight. If we could just read the telegrams along the way. But we can't, and that's part of our destiny, and why life is so filled with surprises. Édith Piaf sang je ne regrette rien: "…I regret nothing…" And you won't regretting taking the time to read A Paris Affaire, especially after learning some of the story behind the story.
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