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We'll always have Paris : trying and failing to be French

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As a bored, moody teenager, Emma Beddington came across a copy of French ELLE in the library of her austere Yorkshire school.

As she turned the pages, full of philosophy, sex and lipstick, she realized that her life had one purpose and one purpose only: she needed to be French. Instead of skulking in her bedroom listening to The Smiths or trudging to Betty's Tea Room to buy fondant fancies, she would be free and solitary, sitting outside the Cafe de Flore with a Scottie dog at her feet, a Moleskine on the table and a Gauloise trembling on her lower lip. And so she set about becoming French: she did a French exchange, albeit in Casablanca; she studied French history at university, and spent the holidays in France with her French boyfriend.

Eventually, after a family tragedy, she found herself living in Paris, with the same French boyfriend and two half-French children.

Her dream had come true, but how would reality match up?

Gradually Emma realized that she might have found Paris, but what she really needed to find was home. Written with enormous wit and warmth, this is a memoir for anyone who has ever worn a Breton T-shirt and wondered, however fleetingly, if they could pass for une vraie Parisienne.

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Product Details
Macmillan
1447285794 / 9781447285793
Hardback
21/04/2016
United Kingdom
English
343 pages
23 cm
General (US: Trade) Learn More