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Our Paris: Sketches from Memory

Name: Our Paris: Sketches from Memory
Author: Edmund White, Hubert Sorin
ISBN: 9780060085926

by Edmund White, Hubert Sorin

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Overview

What happens when one of our most celebrated writers combines talents with a French artist and architect to capture life in their Parisian neighborhood? The result is a lighthearted, gently satiric portrait of the heart of Paris -- including the Marais, Les Halles, the two islands in the Seine, and the Châtelet -- and the people who call it home. It is an enchantingly varied world, populated not only by dazzling literati and ultrachic couturiers and art dealers but also by poetic shopkeepers, grandmotherly prostitutes, and, ever underfoot, an irrepressible basset hound named Fred. The foibles and eccentricities of these sometimes outrageous, always memorable individuals are brought to life with unfailing wit and affection.

Below the surface of the sparkling humor in Our Paris, there is a tragic undercurrent. While Hubert Sorin was completing this work, he was nearing the end of his struggle with AIDS. The book is a tribute to the loving spirit with which the authors banished somberness and celebrated the pleasures of their life together.

One of our most celebrated writers collaborates with French artist Hubert Sorin on this lighthearted, gently satiric portrait of their favorite people and places in and around their neighborhood, the Chatelet, in the run-down heart of Paris. 30 illustrations.

About the Author, Edmund White, Hubert Sorin

Edmund White's novels include A Boy's Own Story, The Farewell Symphony, and The Married Man. He is also the author of a biography of Jean Genet, a study of Proust, and The FlÂneur: A Stroll Through the Paradoxes of Paris. Having lived in Paris for many years, he now resides in New York City and teaches at Princeton University.

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Editorials

Publishers Weekly - Publisher's Weekly

White's stunning achievements as a novelist, short story writer (most recently, Skinned Alive, LJ 6/15/95), and journalist are now augmented by a charming, funny, telling series of vignettes of the Paris neighborhood where he and his lover, Hubert Sorin, lived. Through White's keen observations and Sorin's charming illustrations, the everyday becomes extraordinary, whether it is a walk with their dog or a description of an ordinary Parisian church. Blending the past and the present, with pungent asides into people's character, White's writing has never been finer. Sorin, an architect by training, died of AIDS in 1994, so we shall never see the full fruition of his obvious talent for comic illustration. Recommended for all collections.-David Azzolina, Univ. of Pennsylvania Libs., Philadelphia

Brad Hooper

Paris is Paris; ain't no place else like it! Esteemed American writer Edmund White has called the City of Light home for years, and he and his late lover, French architect and illustrator Hubert Sorin, collaborated on this perfectly charming ode to "la vie parisienne", fortunately completed before Sorin succumbed to AIDS. In resonant text and arresting drawings, they introduce us to the inhabitants of their certainly not upscale but decidedly "not" monochromatic neighborhood. From their concierge, Madame Denise, to a local couturier, Azzedine Alaia, eccentricity reigns supreme in the streets of Chatelet, captured so fondly in the pages of this little book. "Our Paris" becomes our Paris.

From Barnes & Noble

The celebrated American writer and the French artist offer a lighthearted portrait of people and places in and around their neighborhood--the run-down heart of Paris called the Chƒtelet, a vibrant world of chic society, poetic shopkeepers, grandmotherly prostitutes, and a basset hound named Fred. 6" x 7 3/4". B&W illus.