Almost French - Sarah Turnbull

An Australian journalist meets a Frenchman at a dinner party in Romania. She goes to France to spend a week with him, and ends up staying and ultimately marrying him. It's been a while since I read a book by an Australian, and I had forgotten what a nice writing style Australians tend to have: direct, self-reflective, anjd unsentimental. Other books by Australians I have loved: Motherhood by Anne Manne, Searching for Charmian by Suzanne Chick, A Fence Around the Cuckoo by Ruth Park - though she's actually a New Zealander, she feels Australian to me.

This book is mostly about adjusting to the different culture in France as compared to Australia. She writes about being ignored, one-upped, or critiqued at dinner parties, about strangers being rude, about watching in astonishment as her boyfriend removed all the paintings from the walls of a hotel room because he thought they were ugly. She writes about taking her dog to a patisserie (which is completely normal in France) and having a stranger say loudly and disapprovingly to his wife, "Imagine that, a dog in a patisserie." And by this point, the author had been in France long enough that she smiled and said sweetly to him, "Imagine that, a dickhead in a patisserie." Her boyfriend was so happy for her.

Initially I thought this book was a fun (and funny) trifle, but I found myself talking about it with friends and they found that it helped them understand their past interactions in France and with the French. My husband said that now he understood why his date with a French exchange student in high school went so badly. He took her to the Skate House for roller-skating and then to Char-Grill, an outdoor-seating-only burger joint, where she ordered black coffee and chain-smoked. I know he still thinks Char-Grill is a good place to take a date - "It has great atmosphere!" he says - because he took me there when we first started going out. In fairness, back when my husband was in high school Char-Grill had better atmosphere; there was an African-American church beside it and you could sit in the parking lot and listen to the gospel choir practice.

Almost French: Love and a New Life in Paris
Sarah Turnbull
2004
Available from Amazon