Paris, I Love You but You're Bringing Me Down by Rosecrans Baldwin
7.7
Paris, I Love You But You're Bringing Me Down is the account of a self-confessed American 'Francophile''s spontaneous move to Paris to work at a French advertising agency. Hardly speaking a word of French, Mr. Baldwin and his wife soon find a Paris entirely unlike the one they had imagined as they navigate the city and its cultural nuances as outsiders.
Memoir / Farrar, Straus and Giroux / April 24, 2012
Buy from: IndieBound | Amazon | Read Excerpt
Critic's Reviews
Reviewer: Eloisa James
"Baldwin and his wife, Rachel — as well as the Parisians he came to know — are funny and idiosyncratic, and it's a pleasure to spend time with them. Like all "innocent-abroad" memoirs, some of the most charming bits describe translation errors."
Reviewer: Lauren Elkin
"Baldwin provides a pretty good chart of Paris in the last half decade, pausing to make on-the-nose observations about Americans in Paris...Baldwin’s writings on Paris are saturated with a bittersweet nostalgia for the present, living in a place he loves that he is fated to leave. What could be more French?"
Reviewer: Claire Lundberg
"Every publishing season seems to bring its own Paris memoir, and every season I (and plenty of other Americans, in Paris or America,) snap these stories up. But what makes Baldwin’s book particularly enjoyable is that it engages with the clash of our American idea of Paris and Paris the modern reality."
Reviewer: Eric Been
"Ultimately, Paris, I Love You will never be regarded as an “important” book in the expat canon, but that doesn’t mean it is without its small appeals. The result is less Memoirs of Montparnasse and more a portrait of an artist as a young professional."
Reviewer: Thomas Chatterton Williams
"Of course, it's not necessary for a writer to embed in a war zone to find interesting material, but the lack of tension or dramatic incident in "Paris, I Love You" leaves room for too many filler scenes....For lovers of well-turned phrases, though, Mr. Baldwin has plenty to offer."
Reviewer: Susan Salter Reynolds
"What’s new and different here is the detailed insight into what it might be like to take a job in Paris with a moderate understanding of French (not to mention how quickly Baldwin morphs from hipster to insufferable French hipster)....But the thrill wears off, and you can see it in the very structure of Baldwin’s sentences..."