cover image A Girl in Paris

A Girl in Paris

Shusha Guppy. Trafalgar Square Publishing, $29.95 (256pp) ISBN 978-0-434-30852-1

In this second volume of her memoirs--following The Blindfold Horse , an account of her childhood in Iran--journalist and singer Guppy reflects upon her formative years as a student and aspiring performer in 1950s Paris. She spins charming vignettes, conducting a winding, ambulatory tour through her memories, which is appropriate to their Parisian setting. Relatively obscure characters--an elegant Iranian diplomat who arranges the initial phase of Guppy's sojourn in France, the girls at her foyer residence, a music teacher with a tragic secret--mingle in these pages with the famous: poet and lyricist Jacques Prevert, whose discovery of Guppy launched her recording career; philosophers such as Albert Camus and Lucien Goldmann; literary figures Richard Wright and Samuel Beckett. While she is not the first writer to describe how Paris ``became a state of mind which you carried with you for the rest of your life,'' as an Iranian-born woman Guppy explores this phenomenon from a fresh perspective. In combination with her storytelling abilities, her unique perspective enables her memoir to stand out in the genre. (Aug.)