The Madeleine Project by Clara Beaudoux (2017, translated by Alison Anderson, published by New Vessal Press)

Paris in July - Year Ten. - Hosted by Thyme for Tea

So far as my participation in Paris In July Year Ten I have read 

1.  Colette- Two Early Short Stories

2. The Black Notebook by Patrick Modiano 

3. "A Duel" by Guy de Maupassant ( A Franco-Prussian War Story)

4. Life, Death, and Betrayal at The Hotel Ritz in Paris by Tilar Mazzeo (non fiction)

5. How the French Invented Love by Marilyn Yolem (literary history)

6. "The Lost Child" by Francois Coppée 

7. "The Juggler of Norte Dame" by Anatole France- no post

8. A Very French Christmas- A Collection of the Greatest Holiday Stories of France

9. "The Illustrious Gaudissart" by Honore de Balzac

10. After the Circus by Patrick Modiano

11. "Gaudissart II" by Honore de Balzac

12. 6:41 to Paris by Jean-Phillipe Blondel

13. "Noel" by Irene Nemirovsky 

14. Giovanni's Room by James Baldwin

15. The Madeleine Project by Clara Beaudoux

I am starting to get behind in my posting for Paris in July.  The Madeleine Project by Clara Beaudoux is a perfect pick for Paris in July, translated by Alison Anderson, to be published September, 2017 by New Vessal Press).  Given that I will make use of The publisher's description and just conclude with a thought or two of my own.

"A young woman moves into a Paris apartment and discovers a storage room filled with the belongings of the previous owner, a certain Madeleine who died in her late nineties, and whose treasured possessions nobody seems to want. In an audacious act of journalism driven by personal curiosity and humane tenderness, Clara Beaudoux embarks on The Madeleine Project, documenting what she finds on Twitter with text and photographs, introducing the world to an unsung twentieth-century figure. Along the way, she uncovers a Parisian life indelibly marked by European history. This is a graphic novel for the Twitter age, a true story that encapsulates one woman's attempt to live a life of love and meaning together with a contemporary quest to prevent that existence from slipping into oblivion. Through it all, The Madeleine Project movingly chronicles, and allows us to reconstruct, intimate memories of a bygone era."

As I read this book it took a little while but I soon became captivated by Madeline as we gradually began to find her life unravel in a series of Twitter posts.  I wondered if she had a lover, did he survive WW Two.  We learned what she liked to read.  I saw the narrator become closer to Madeline as her uncovering of the items she left behind unraveled.  This is a different kind of work than all the others I have read for Paris in July.  I enjoyed it and think most would.

Alison Anderson spent many years in California; she now lives in a Swiss village and works as a literary translator. Her translations include Europa Editions’ The Elegance of the Hedgehog by Muriel Barbery, and works by Nobel laureate J. M. G. Le Clézio. She has also written two previous novels and is the recipient of a National Endowment for the Arts Literary Translation Fellowship. She has lived in Greece and Croatia, and speaks several European languages, including Russian.

Quick personal note, Anderson's translation of The Elegance of the Hedgehog by Muriel Barbery was the very first book I posted upon eight years ago.  I love that bookand thank Anderson for her lovely translation 

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