On April 20, I boarded an Air France flight to Los Angeles, the first stop on a 16-day book tour that would connect me with bookstores, book lovers, and, most importantly, passionate Francophiles in California, Chicago, Pennsylvania, and New York. As I flew back to Paris, eager to vote, on the final flight out of JFK last Friday evening, I thought only of how I would manage to assimilate the experience. How could I condense and accurately capture the overwhelming emotions of the last two weeks?
Bringing “The New Paris” out into the world was entirely foreign to me, both in process and sensation. Much of researching and writing the book was so solitary that I was taken aback by the unadulterated joy I felt upon receiving early feedback. All those galling moments of self-doubt, the waiting, the planning, the many nights of fitful sleep, the list-making, become nary a consideration when you’re finally presented with a stack of your own work and avid readers waiting to discover it. Though some might find the comparison to pregnancy and birth a bit hyperbolic (and I can’t speak from experience), the visceral response is one of amazement and bewilderment. Did I produce that? Were those my…
