TBR READS: Black Girl In Paris by Shay Youngblood

Black Girl in Paris, Riverhead Books, 2000

Key elements of this book:

• Paris setting

• 1980s time period

• James Baldwin

• Finding oneself

Eden has dreamt of going to Paris for most of her life. Even as she works in the basement of a former plantation, she dreams of the freedom of Paris, and to walk the same streets as her literary hero James Baldwin. She imagines herself living there, finally going after her dream of being a writer. She will meet James Baldwin and he will take her under his wing.

The year is 1986, and Paris has been under assault for weeks before Eden arrives. Bombs are going off at an alarming frequency, and no one knows where the next will be. It's a time when "Terrorism was so popular that there were full-page ads in the International Herald Tribune offering hijacking insurance to frequent flyers" (5). But she is here. Eden is finally in Paris, and she only has a moment to think about panicking when she meets the first of many friends who help her through the troubled and lonesome times that lay ahead.

Youngblood paints Paris as a city with two sides. It's beautiful and full of art and music and poetry, but it's also a city with darkness, danger, and hate. The reader sees Eden's longing to embrace this new life of hers, this freedom she escaped to Paris for, but we also see her afraid to reach for it; to take that final step into her new self.

There is so much in this story. So much nuance. It's almost like a dream. Vignettes told out of order with no concept of time. The narrative never fully allows the reader to get their bearings, something that turns out to be one of the best parts about the book. It's only in the end, when Eden goes to the South of France (a place where she hopes to finally meet Baldwin) that we can get a grasp on time.

Things I like about the book:

• Paris (bien sur!)

• Historical facts sprinkled throughout the story. Bombings in Paris, student protests, mass deportations by the French government.

• Eden's relationships.

This is a short, understated book, but lovers of literary fiction or stories that take place in France will enjoy being transported to 1980s Paris as experienced by a young, Black woman willing to take a huge chance to follow her dreams.

*Content Warnings: Police brutality against minorities and talk of child sexual abuse (not graphic).