l'appart

l’appart: The Delights and Disasters of Making My Paris Home by David Lebovitz

  I am kind of a survival book snob.  I admit it.  I figure if the author lived to tell the story then what’s the point of reading it?  I mean, we know the ending, right?  So, generally, I have to think something is a bit out of the ordinary to give it a go.

L’appart made me take a second look because it was written by a professional cook and baker, it was set in Paris and it was promised to be honest, humorous and horrible. 

Mr. Lebovitz had lived in Paris in a small (they’re all small) rented apartment for ten years before he decided he had made the commitment to Paris and would purchase his own apartment.  Enter a love of paperwork and waiting, something the French embrace wholeheartedly.

The author’s biggest problem was he didn’t know how to be French.  He was nice.  He thought customer service was the same worldwide, that there existed customer service in the first place! He trusted his contractor and he baked cookies for them.  And he quickly learned that by doing this he had gotten off on the wrong foot.

L’appart is all of honest, humorous and horrible but so readable even though I knew it was going to end with the apartment purchased and renovated,  I still kept reading because the more I got into his story the more I related to our own, especially when the job was finished and he assessed the outcome.  I almost cried. For ME.  I thought I had buried all of the anger and angst and here he was, Mr. Lebovitz, bringing it all back up again.

If you want to live in Paris, even for just awhile, you’re better off living there through this book because it apparently takes a strong constitution to do it for real.