An Apartment in Paris

When Colette O’Connor’s thoroughly American mother, who in a previous life likely lost her head to the guillotine, given how thoroughly French she felt, in this life lost her heart to an apartment in Paris, what else could Colette do? She quit her job, pocketed every last cent of savings, packed the cats, and – bonjour, France – said here I am! Living in her mother’s pretty pied-a-terre made Paris now home and oh, what a magical, marvelous, mortifying home it was.

Embarking on merry, if not perplexing adventures in all things French – lingerie to love to the peculiar art of nudity (mon Dieu!), Colette lived and laughed her way through a fol-de-rol of fun. In An Apartment in Paris, she shares every silly, sublime minute of what it took to go from frump to fabulous, from doormat to kick-ass, in a memorable quest to make Paris her own. These stories of love, family, and fun, set in the City of Light, only go to show that, really, whether it’s a lunch date with Renoir, lessons in hilarity from the quintessential French lover, or the oh-la-la hard-earned by surviving the worst embarrassment ever, family and laughing and living it up are happiest – as Mom always knew best – when they take place in Paris.