French Lessons - Ellen Sussman

 

‘The only thing that lasts is love, even when it’s gone.’

Three Americans are taking French language tuition from a language school in the city of romance, Paris, and the novel focuses on the events that happen during the course of the same one day as each of them strolls around the city speaking French with their own individual French tutor. In the short opening section of the book, we are briefly introduced to the tutors, Nico, Philippe and Chantal, and we discover a little about the history between the three of them. Then the novel consists of three separate short stories told as the day in Paris unwinds, first for Nico and his new student Josie who has suffered a loss and is on a trip alone that was meant to be for two, then Philippe and Riley, the wife and mother who is in Paris due to her husbands’ job, and finally Chantal and Jeremy, who has spent the week with her whilst his film-star wife shoots a movie, and this is his last day of tuition. The novel concludes with a final short section about the tutors as they meet again at the end of the day.

More character driven than plot driven, the three students of French all have their flaws and they all have different relationship issues, doubts, or problems, and it’s interesting to dip into each of their lives briefly and discover these conflicts. The novel explores different aspects of love, passion and sex, (at one point explicitly), and conveys the confusion and feeling of being lost and looking for direction in life and love.

The ultimate outcome of this day in Paris for all of them seems to be a new clarity and understanding of their situations, gained through the discussions and time spent with these strangers, their tutors. In fact this finding a moment of clarity and decisiveness is true for at least one of the tutors too. 

This is a relatively quick read, it’s fun and a bit of an escape, it tells of love, passion and desire, and it’s enjoyable to hear some famous Parisian sights name-dropped as the pairs move around the city. My favourite story was the first one, about Josie and Nico. I would be interested to see what the author does next.

You can visit the author’s website to find out more. Thank you to the publisher for the opportunity to review this book prior to release. 

French Lessons is currently available for £1 on Kindle http://www.amazon.co.uk/French-Lessons-ebook/dp/B005KRUI6E/ref=tmm_kin_title_0?ie=UTF8&m=A3TVV12T0I6NSM