SOLOSTORIES: “THE PARIS NOVEL”

SoloStories is our feature in which we explore books, films and TV shows that show single women navigating their lives – but romance is not the main component.

"The Paris Novel" by Ruth Reichel is like a great meal – you savor every morsel, and you feel a little sad when you’ve taken the last bite.

Stella St. Vincent is given an inheritance by her deceased mother that she must use to travel to Paris. Reluctantly, she goes and does the touristy things, but she doesn’t appreciate the city.

Then a series of events transforms her. She wanders into a dress shop, where she finds a dress that’s seemingly made for her. She meets Jules, an art collector who takes her around Paris sites. When she visits the Jeu de Parme museum, she sees a Manet painting called "Olympia" and becomes intrigued by the subject, Victorine-Louise Meurent. She wants to know more about Meurent, a woman who may have been an artist in her own right. (Along the way, Stella also learns about Rose Valland, the art museum curator who preserved French Art that the Nazis wanted to destroy during World War II.)

While Stella is pursuing the mystery of Meurent, she becomes closer to solving a personal mystery – the identity of her father. She also makes friends at the Shakespeare and Company bookstore and indulges in numerous meals. Reichel’s writing is truly beautiful when it comes to describing the food. In one passage, she writes, “The flavors almost dizzied her, like a roller coaster rocketing her up and plunging her back down.” It’s almost like you’re eating the meal along with Stella.

There’s never a hint of romance in the novel, which would have been the main plotline in most other novels. Stella falls in love with the city, its art, its food, its people and herself. It makes a nice fictional companion to “I’m Mostly Here to Enjoy Myself: One Woman’s Pursuit of Pleasure of Paris," the memoir by Glynnis MacNicol.

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