French Lessons by Ellen Sussman
Ooh la-la! Those starched white aprons, those lusted after Ricard ashtrays, the smell of Gitanes wafting above the diesel fumes from the Périphérique. The vicious gates of the Métro that slap you in the gut by way of a bonjour, the many richesses of the city in captured in its morning glory by Jacques Dutronc in Paris S’éveille.
Home to sumptuous Shakespeare & Co, muse of writers and flâneurs worldwide, the city of lovers was also home to author Ellen Sussman for five years. A teacher of creative writing whose début novel On a Night Like This was met with praise, prizes and translated into six languages, Sussman’s CV is perfect for the follow-up, French Lessons.
This book is sex in a bottle, labelled by Guerlain. Experience and success in editing Bad Girls: 26Writers Misbehave and Dirty Words: A Literary Encyclopedia of Sex are proof, if you still need any, that our author is no prude. Eau no!
Beginning with an introduction to the jobbing tutors at the Vivre à la Française language school, the novel is packaged neatly into three sections dealing in turn with the relationships of Josie and Nico, Riley and Philippe, and Jeremy and Chantal.
We are led through the streets of Paris in recreation of an experience from Sussman’s own life. Tasked with delivering a writers’ workshop in Paris one summer, she decided to take her husband along for the ride and offer him a gift of a week’s French lessons with a personal tutor.
A very trusting, generous gesture given the country’s penchant for maîtresses and the discovery that his companion for the week really was a ravishing beauty!
Reflecting on the question of trust and the scenario of ‘what if your seemingly content partner did fall in lust with their tutor?’ led to the unfurling of this sizzling travelogue.
I enjoyed the exploration of emotions, what happens in the three episodes and how the various relationships overlap.
There are echoes of Jules et Jim in a one-woman, two-man scenario, we explore grief, jealousy, hurt and infidelity and there’s plenty of soul-searching amongst the crumpled sheets. If I were American like the author I guess I could relate more to her need to make one half of each coupling American.
I sped through this book at a brisk pace because although the novel handles some weighty emotions, it somehow lacks the depth seen in the film Paris Je T’Aime . With each vignette of this 2007 film sliced into arrondissements I can’t help but mention it, particularly as Sussman’s gorgeous website offers an interactive experience for readers to walk the same boulevards as the characters, read excerpts embedded in the map, and enjoy beautiful illustrations by Juliette Lemontey.
French Lessons by Ellen Sussman is out now, published by Corsair. Buy it in paperback for £5.49, or for Kindle for only £1.
Rating: 3.5/5
Recommended for: If you can’t get there on the Eurostar, are a Francophile or an ex-pat, then sit back and enjoy this virtual experience of Paris.
Other recommended reading: La Lectrice by Raymond Jean and Lust in Translation: Infidelity from Tokyo to Tennessee by Pamela Druckerman. I’d also strongly suggest a viewing of the superb L’Appartement for its complex plot of tangled relationships.
Rebecca Smeaton
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