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Author Sothen, John von, author.

Title Monsieur Mediocre : one American learns the high art of being everyday French / John von Sothen.

Publication Info. [New York] : Viking, [2019]

Copies

Location Call No. Status
 Bloomfield, Prosser Library - Adult Department  BIOG. SOTHEN, J.    Storage
 Cheshire Public Library - Adult Department Lower Level  BIOGRAPHY SOTHEN    Check Shelf
 Cromwell-Belden Public Library - Adult Department  B SOTHEN J.    DUE 04-05-24
 South Windsor Public Library - Biographies  B VON SOTHEN    Check Shelf
Description xvi, 270 pages ; 24 cm
Summary "Americans love to love Paris. We buy books about how the French parent, why French women don't get fat, and how to be Parisian wherever you are. While our work hours increase every year, we think longingly of the six weeks of vacation the French enjoy, imagining them at the seaside in stripes with plates of fruits de mer. John von Sothen fell in love with Paris through the stories his mother told of her year spent there as a student. After falling for and marrying the French waitress he meets in New York, von Sothen follows his mother's dream and moves to Paris. But fifteen years in, he's finally ready to admit his mother's Paris is mostly a fantasy. In this hilarious and delightful collection of essays, von Sothen walks us through real life in Paris--myth-busting our Parisian daydreams but also revealing the inimitable and too often invisible pleasures of family life abroad. Through these essays, you'll learn about what to do when you unwittingly commit yourself to two weeks of vacation with friends who ration snacks down to the gram and who mock you mercilessly for sleeping in; how to react when French men turn to you, the American, for fashion tips such as where to find a Maine trapper vest; and how to tell if you're being invited to a super-exclusive secret society of intellectuals or, alternately, a weird sex club. Relentlessly funny and full of incisive observations, Monsieur Mediocre is ultimately a love letter to France--to its absurdities, its history, its ideals--but it's a very French love letter: frank, smoky, unsentimental. It is a clear-eyed ode to a beautiful, complex, contradictory country from someone who both eagerly and grudgingly calls it home"-- Provided by publisher.
Contents The art of the unfortunate event -- She had me at bah -- The aristocrats -- Bringing up Bibi -- Weeks of not so great time off -- Letter from the no-go zone -- Huge in France -- Voulez-vous think tank avec moi? -- Wesh we can -- Will you be my French friend? -- Years and years and years in Normandy -- The French resistant -- There's no place like chez moi.
Subject Sothen, John von.
Americans -- France -- Biography.
France -- Social life and customs -- 21st century.
Authors, American -- 21st century -- Biography.
Americans. (OCoLC)fst00807488
Authors, American. (OCoLC)fst00821764
Manners and customs. (OCoLC)fst01007815
France. (OCoLC)fst01204289
Chronological Term 2000-2099
Genre/Form Biography. (OCoLC)fst01423686
Autobiographies.
Other Form: Online version: Sothen, John von, author. Monsieur Mediocre New York : Viking, 2019 9780735224841 (DLC) 2019003430
ISBN 9780735224834 (hardcover)
0735224838 (hardcover)
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