In December 2006/January 2007, Lucy Knisley took a six-week trip to Paris with her mother to celebrate her mother’s fiftieth birthday and Lucy’s twenty-second. French Milk is Knisley’s travel journal from that trip, and it’s a pleasing combination of photos, text, and drawings (Knisley is a cartoonist). I love all the Parisian details of this book—the buildings, the food, the great old stuff at the flea market, the art that Knisley and her mother see at the Louvre, the Musée d’Orsay, the Pantheon. (Knisley writes about seeing Leviathan Thot by Ernesto Neto at the Pantheon, and I was intrigued enough to go look for photographs online: whoa.) Also pleasing: Knisley’s excursions to comic stores and English-language bookshops and her notes about what she buys: Winter’s Tale by Mark Helprin, Perfume by Patrick Suskind, etc. Not that the whole trip is a delight: Knisley’s about to graduate from college and is worried about finding a job, and is also dealing with general early-twenties/being-a-grownup anxiety. (Choice page: “I’m too depressed to make this journal. All I can do now is draw happy manatee flocks” (132). With, of course, a totally excellent drawing of ten manatees looking big and smiley.) This was a quick read, and I wanted a little more—more volume, more introspection, more Paris—but I’m glad I read it.
French Milk by Lucy KnisleyTouchstone (Simon & Schuster), 2008 (originally Epigraph Publishing, 2007)
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4 responses to “French Milk by Lucy KnisleyTouchstone (Simon & Schuster), 2008 (originally Epigraph Publishing, 2007)”
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Today, I am longing to revisit Paris. I have only been there once and it was in October of this year. Perhaps this book would be the perfect fit for my Thursday.
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Mm, yes, I could see this book being a good thing to read if you want a glimpse of someone else’s glimpse of Paris that will spark memories of your own. I’ve only been to Paris once, too, but not recently – it was on a spring break school trip to France and Spain during my junior year of high school, which meant lots of supervision/not much chance to really explore. I’d love to go back as an adult. Someday!
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Yeah, it wasn’t super deep, but I liked it a lot. It made me want to go to Paris, which I have never wanted before (that I can remember). It actually made me want to go to Europe with my own mother — which I did, though to London and not Paris.
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I mean to get around to reading this book. That art installation is quite impressive. It would be have fun to see it and walk under it.
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