What would you do if someone you loved disappeared? How far would you go to be reunited?

These are the questions Leah, the main character in Paris By the Book answers. She describes her efforts in the prologue.

            Once a week, I chase men who are not my husband.

            (After everything, I do this still.)

            I should not, but there are many things I do that should not—smoke, own a bookstore, pay for French lessons I always find ways to skip—and this is one. I walk my daughters to school, stare past the parents staring at me, and start my search for that day’s man.

            I’ve sometimes begun right there on the sidewalk, trailing a fellow parent, a father, as he frees himself from the clutch outside the massive school door. More frequently, I walk up to the teeming rue Saint-Antoine and sift the passing crowd. Some mornings I find someone to chase right away. Some mornings it takes all morning. Some mornings I follow someone for a while, usually someone just like my husband, or as close as I can manage, or bear—the ink-black hair, the narrow shoulders, the hands that can’t say in pockets, the head that can’t stop turning every way but mine—only to lose interest when some errant detail distracts. My husband would never wear blue glasses. My husband would never not yield a taxi to a pregnant woman. My husband would never steal a magazine from newsstand, an apple from a greengrocer, a book from a bouquiniste. My husband would never—and I say this once on one of my forays, a dad I’d trailed from the school door—kiss a woman not his wife.

I was fortunate to hear the author Liam Callanan read this passage at Mount Mary University’s Writers on Writing February 11^th, 2019 Event. After he read his compelling prologue, he told us about how he’d come up with the idea. About five or six years ago, Liam and his family were looking for a place to go for Spring Break and it turned out plane tickets to Paris were on sale. Liam decided to write an article that would be a children’s guide to Paris. He and his family would visit the places where Ludwig Bemelmans’ Madeline had adventures. In their walk-about Liam’s family passed an English language bookstore called The Red Wheelbarrow. He has an author’s rule—anytime they go to a bookstore, his kids get a book. Liam went inside and found the place disorganized. He tried to buy a book and the owner refused to sell it to him.

Instead, she said, “The truth is the store’s too much for me. My daughter left. My husband left. This is the end unless you buy the shop.”

Liam answered, “I think we’ll lose all our money in eight months.”

“Six months,” she corrected. Liam and his family left the shop, but the idea for Paris By the Book was born. And, good news, he’s planning on having a book signing in the Red Wheelbarrow in the near future. In preparation for the Writers on Writing Event I read Paris By the Book, which I loved. You can read my review at this link.

Liam Callanan’s a professor in the English department of the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, where he’s served as the department chair and the coordinator of its Ph.D. program in creative writing. And you can find out more about him, his novels, and his writing career at this link. https://www.liamcallanan.com/