Book of the week–A Paris Year

June 16, 2017 By Susan Blumberg-Kason Leave a Comment

Janice MacLeod’s memoir, Paris Letters, is one of my favorites. It’s visually stunning, as she includes gorgeous paintings and sketches of Paris along with her fairytale story of how she met her husband in the City of Light. I thought there’d be no way she could outdo herself, but I was so wrong!

A Paris Year: My Day-to-Day Adventures in the Most Romantic City in the World comes out today (June 20th) and it’s the type of book you beg and plead and hope will never end. Part travelogue, part journal, and part coffee table book, A Paris Year will appeal to people who know the city well and those who have never been. Or those, like me, who went once and were about to go for the second time.

I was in Paris the week after I read this book and recognized some of the places she wrote about, but certainly learned a ton about others I’d never visited or didn’t know about. She organizes it by month and date, according to the Saints’ Days in France, which fall almost every day of the month. Sometimes an entry will include fun historical facts about figures like Napoleon (both of them) or Edith Piaf, while others will just have photo that says more than any words could describe.

I love her observations of tourists and of locals, and how the cultures of the two differ. Something I never really knew about, but appreciated very much, is that Parisians are content with and take pride in whatever they do to earn a living. That’s not the case in the US by a stretch. But waiters and butchers and cheesemongers are experts in their fields in Paris and are as respected as anyone else in the city. That was very refreshing.

This book is so beautiful, with its photos and drawings, that it’s set a new bar for travel books. I’ve only known of one other book like this (How to Hong Kong, which I reviewed some months back), but Janice MacLeod’s is structured differently and covers all seasons and months of the year. Even though I’ve only been to Paris in June, I can now picture it in August, when the city clears out, or in November, when the days are gray and the trees become bare. Spring seems the most dreamy. No wonder there are several songs written about this time of year there.

A Paris Year is not the kind of book you should lend to others, nor is it the type you should borrow. I’d invest the US$25 and keep it all to yourself. Although you won’t want it to end, you can always read it again and again. I know I will when I return home!

Book of the week–The 100-Pound Gangster

June 5, 2017 By Susan Blumberg-Kason Leave a Comment

Back in the late 1990s, I lived in the most dangerous neighborhood in San Francisco. The only familiar retail outlet was a Walgreen’s pharmacy a few blocks away. The neighborhood had been an old Maltese enclave, but only one Italian grocery remained from those years. The main shopping street was littered with Cantonese BBQs (our favorite was run by a former cop from Macau), Chinese groceries, herbal medicine stores, and a dim sum parlor with a pink exterior.

So when I heard about The 100-Pound Gangster, which was set in 1990s San Francisco, I was naturally curious and eager to go back in time to a place I knew well. I’m not saying I could relate to Henry Lin’s life as a gangster in San Francisco Chinatown or in prison, but I knew was it was like to live in a rough area of San Francisco (home to most of the 60+ gun deaths in the city, which was a pittance compared to the rest of the US!).

I got into this book right away and didn’t put it down until I finished it later that evening. It’s a quick read and very engaging from start to finish. Lin is born and raised in San Francisco’s Sunset District, an area in San Francisco known for the best Chinese restaurants. His parents were not poor, but his family life was very dysfunctional. His father left the family when Lin was young and his mother favored his older brother in a way that made Lin feel all alone. No child should ever be made to feel worthless and unloved, especially a young teenager.

Lin found acceptance and family in a Chinatown gang. Soon he was in charge of twenty gangsters and had a reputation for being loyal and trustworthy (as he would find out, those two traits are nowhere near the same thing). He was arrested for assault with a metal pipe and was going to get a light sentence since he was still only in his early teens. But the prosecutor had just embarked on a campaign to crack down on gang activity and made an example of Lin, serving him an eight-year sentence.

In prison, Lin grew up. He not only became friends with prisoners from all different backgrounds, but also began to write. He wrote for a prison publication and gained the attention of a facility in Pennsylvania for troubled youth. He continued writing there and ended up leaving a year before his sentence was finished.

Throughout the book, Lin travels back to Hong Kong to visit his grandfather, some kind of official high up in the Chinese government. Although Lin never learns exactly what his grandfather did for the Chinese government, he understands that his Gong Gong was high up in intelligence and may have even worked with the CIA. As his relationship with his mother and brother deteriorate, his relationship with his Gong Gong strengthens. Lin dedicates his book to his late grandfather.

Lin feels many temptations to return to the old life after he returns from Glen Mills, Pennsylvania. He tries his hardest to stay out of his former Chinatown gang and the reader can tell how difficult it was for him abstain from that lifestyle. His last act in the underworld takes place in a casino in Macau. I found myself rooting for Lin, for him to succeed in this movie-like finale.

Although Henry Lin is a pen name and he doesn’t reveal his true identity, his voice is powerful and shines through his pages. He never discussed the neighborhood where I lived, but I knew the Chinatown Playground, as well as Sam Wo, a restaurant I went to when I visited San Francisco in 1997 for a week and ended up buying a house in said bad neighborhood on that trip.

The only thing I wished for in this book was more about his time in Hong Kong. But that wasn’t the main focus of his book, so I’m hoping for another one from him set there. Henry Lin is a fresh new voice and one I hope to read again and again.

Interview with Author Samantha Verant

April 6, 2017 By Susan Blumberg-Kason 2 Comments

I got to know Samantha Verant a few years ago after my editor gave me a review copy of her memoir, Seven Letters from Paris (Sourcebooks, 2014). I read the book in one setting and was completely hooked. We connected online and learned we had a lot in common: we both grew up in the Chicago area, we both remarried, have been expats, and studied abroad. Her sister was living in Hong Kong when we first started corresponding, so when I went there for some book events, I met Samantha’s sister, Jessica.

Fast forward a couple years and I was planning a trip to Paris with my husband. Samantha lives in southwestern France, about 7-8 hours from Paris. So we decided to meet halfway between the two in Bordeaux. It was so much fun. She and her husband, Jean-Luc, showed us around Bordeaux, where we ate lunch, and then drove us to a vineyard for a tour and tasting. Definitely a highlight of our trip!

And now she has a new memoir: How to Make a French Family: A Memoir of Love, Food, and Faux Pas (Sourcebooks, 2017). Here’s the dazzling summary:

Say bonjour to a whole new way of life!

Take one French widower, his two young children, and drop a former city girl from Chicago into a small town in southwestern France. Shake vigorously… and voilà: a blended Franco-American family whose lives will all drastically change.

Floating on a cloud of newlywed bliss, Samantha couldn’t wait to move to France to begin her life with her new husband, Jean-Luc, and his kids. But almost from the moment the plane touches down, Samantha realizes that there are a lot of things about her new home―including flea-ridden cats, grumpy teenagers, and language barriers―that she hadn’t counted on.

Struggling to feel at home and wondering when exactly her French fairy tale is going to start, Samantha isn’t sure if she really has what it takes to make it in la belle France. But when a second chance at life and love is on the line, giving up isn’t an option. How to Make a French Family is the heartwarming and sometimes hilarious story of the culture clashes and faux pas that , in the end, add up to one happy family.

I recently interviewed her about her new memoir, path to publication, and of course the duo of family and food.

Susan Blumberg-Kason: I loved your first memoir, “Seven Letters from Paris” and found it so dreamy and romantic. “How to Make a French Family” is so different, yet just as moving. When you wrote “Seven Letters”, did you know you had another memoir in you, or did that come to you after the publication of your first book?

Samantha Verant: When I first wrote Seven Letters, the draft was 105,000 words. Most publishers don’t accept manuscripts over 75k – especially from a first time author. So I cut a good chunk of it out when I submitted– the ending when I was living in France. By doing this, what I realized was that I had two stories, one the romantic fairy tale romance, and the other – life after the fairy tale romance as an instant immigrant stepmom. That’s my story. I’m sticking to it.

SBK: Blended families are not so unusual these days, but your situation is still rare: an American woman who moves overseas to become an instant stepmother to non-English speaking stepchildren. You write with honesty and humor–and sometimes tears–about the painful realities of parenting children who don’t speak your language and who don’t understand your culture beyond what they see in American movies and television shows. If you had to do it all over again, is there anything you would have done differently when it came to bonding with Elvire and Max, your stepchildren?

SV: I wouldn’t change a thing. Becoming stepmom two French kids was similar to my skills with the French language. I knew enough to get by, but I also knew that I wasn’t going to become fluent with either overnight. Relationships need to grow on their own, without being forced or pushed. And that’s what happened. I’m one lucky instant immigrant stepmom! And I’m probably more fluent in “mom” than my French. At the very least, people like my “cute” American accent, which with twinges of Chicago and California girl is impossible to get rid of.

SBK: Your husband, Jean-Luc, is such a great sport. He’s a main character in not just one but two memoirs. Sometimes I think it’s easier to write memoir if the other central characters are not in the picture anymore. What’s the most challenging thing about writing about your husband, the closest person in your life?

SV: Like most French, Jean-Luc is very reserved when it comes to his private life. Things are just done differently here. When you have people over for dinner, unless they are family or really good friends, there are no house tours, no bringing out photos from your trip. On that, I’ve been prohibited from posting recent pictures of him on my web site! The poor guy! A serious rocket scientist, when you Google his name, my site and photos come up– complete with goofy posts. In the end, though, he’s proud of my accomplishments and because he’s the brightest star in my world, he comes off in a positive way in both books– the way I see him. He trusts me with that.

SBK: Living overseas is not always the glitz and glamour that’s portrayed in the movies and now in social media. Is there something that was unexpectedly difficult about living in southwestern France that you didn’t have time to write about in your book?

SV: Well, in How to Make A French Family, I touch upon a lot of the difficulties of living in a foreign country. But it’s funny. Every time somebody learns that I live in France they always say, “OMG! You are so lucky. I love Paris.” When I tell them I live in southwestern France, in a small town called Cugnaux, where the glitz and glamour is limited to cute old ladies with shocking shades of hair (eggplant or chili pepper red) wearing housecoats and ballerina flats, confusion ensues! I do love my life here now. It’s simple and filled with love…and good food.

SBK: Food is an integral part of French living and you certainly bring that alive in these pages. I love that you include recipes of the dishes you write about during your adjustment in Cugnaux. Do you think it would have been more difficult to adjust to life in southern France if food weren’t important to the culture and if there were no great recipes to learn? I’m thinking about 1960s London or other places or times when food only served as nourishment and nothing else!

SV: No, the adjustments would have been the same. Food and family meals were a huge part of my American culture, too, thanks to my grandmother, Nanny, and my mother. I guess we had more European eating habits- home cooked meals with fresh ingredients. But this isn’t to say I didn’t have the occasional TV dinner as a kid. I loved those TV dinners, the ones with the cartoon of a pirate, I think?

SBK: One of my favorite parts of book publishing is the cover design process. And once again you have a beautiful cover! Were you involved in the design process or did Sourcebooks’ fabulous art department come up with this design before you got involved in the process? Can you talk a little about your initial impressions when you saw your cover for the first time?

SV: I loved the initial cover when I first saw it– the graphic of the cookies and the color. But, being a graphic designer, I wasn’t a fan of the first title treatment. The font, to me, looked unfinished. I expressed my concerns to Anna. Asked for a bit more pizzazz. She listened to me. And, voilà, the design team came back with a new treatment, including those cute white scrolls. When I saw what they did, I was thrilled!!!

SBK: You’ve written two memoirs and a middle grades novel. What’s next?

SV: Fiction! Yes! Finally, I can make things up! Wheeee! The books will be written about things I’m passionate about- like food and wine. There will always be a Franco-American theme. Write what you know, right? I’ve also taken a deep interest in screen writing. It’s so much fun and very different from writing a book. I’m hooked. But on more on that later…

SBK: Thank you so much, Samantha! If you’d like a sneak peak of the delicious recipes in her book, check out this link: http://www.samanthaverant.com/p/les-recettes-from-book.html

Book of the week–Confessions of a Dangerous Mind

March 22, 2017 By Susan Blumberg-Kason Leave a Comment

In memory of American game show host extraordinaire, Chuck Barris, who passed away today, my book of the week is his 1982 memoir, Confessions of a Dangerous Mind: An Unauthorized Autobiography, which was re-released 20 years later just before its film adaptation was released.

I saw the movie in the theater before reading the book, but enjoyed them both immensely. Was Barris really a CIA assassin, sent all over the world under the guise of a Newlywed Game chaperone? It’s unlikely, but it makes for great entertainment. Note the word “unauthorized” in the subtitle. But what’s not to like about a Cold War spy novel disguised as a memoir? Barris is a master storyteller and just as eccentric in his writing as he was on TV.

May his memory be a blessing.