Our Paris: Sketches from Memory

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.