Dreaming in French

A compelling and poignant coming-of-age story about a sharply observant American girl’s young adulthood in Paris and New York set against the backdrop of Europe’s most turbulent decade—for readers of Curtis Sittenfeld, Diane Johnson, and Lorrie Moore. For Charlotte Sanders, a precocious and privileged fifteen-year-old American girl growing up in Paris in the late 1970s, life has a dreamy quality. Her father, a lawyer and quiet intellectual, spends evenings reading Balzac in his study and listening to opera. Her sister is a star rider at the equestrian club. And her mother Astrid is charming, gorgeous, and charismatic. But Charlotte’s peaceful existence is turned upside down when Astrid has an affair with a Polish Communist-resister and the family is shattered. Charlotte and her mother move to New York, where reduced circumstances and Astrid’s unwillingness to face reality force Charlotte to quickly grow up. Charlotte observes her mother’s stylish egocentricity with both disdain and awe as she lives through her own unhappy love affair and finally confronts the emotional scars left by her parents’ divorce. Featuring pitch-perfect descriptions of Parisian life, this enchanting story is warm, witty, and smart. It is an endear- ing portrayal of the challenges of adolescence and an honest account of one girl’s discovery that where we come from makes us who we are.