Eleanor Brown's The Light of Paris is for me one of those contented sigh of satisfaction reads. It was just what I needed right now--frothy but well written, thoroughly enchanting escapist fiction. Don't be put off by the word frothy. I mean that in the best sense. It is a light read in that you know (or are at least pretty sure) that there will be some kind of happy outcome, though there might be a rocky path in getting there. Brown is a great storyteller and while there is plenty of heavy-heartedness the story is also peppered with lots of humor, which I loved. I don't need to necessarily like the characters I am reading about, but it is nice when I find them real and relatable. In this case I could see aspects of the protagonists' personalities in my own, which made the story even more satisfying.
The Light of Paris is a dual narrative story set in contemporary Chicago and the small town of Magnolia, which sits somewhere between Memphis and Little Rock, and 1920s Washington and Paris. Since Madeleine happens across her grandmother's diaries maybe this is more her story than Margie's, but the plotlines are so tightly woven both women's stories provide a nice counterbalance to each other. Both narratives are equally compelling and I was never disappointed at the switch, only left with that feeling that I wanted to see how each woman's story would turn out.
This is a story of dreams that seem unreachable, of finding yourself and finding happiness despite being stuck in impossible situations and feeling the pain of being a square peg in a round peg society. Neither woman is the belle of the party, they're more like wallflowers. For Margie, stuck in the polite society of 1920s middle class respectability her mother fears she will never find a spouse, so plain and bookish is she. But Margie's dreams extend from her reading. She would love nothing more than to be a writer. It's not to say she doesn't harbor a few school girl fantasies of being swept off her feet by a handsome young man, but the only interest thrown her way is from a colleague of her father's looking for a 'wife' rather than a lover. When an offer is made for marriage she literally runs from the room so unhappy is the prospect.
Madeleine, her granddaughter, has always thought of her grandmother as a serious and very proper woman who spent her time on all the right committees supporting her husband and being the right kind of wife a successful businessman needs. She has passed away before Madeleine, returning home to Magnolia to escape her own unhappy marriage, comes across diaries Margie kept while traveling in Paris. Reading them opens up a world and a life Madeleine had never known existed, one she cannot imagine her proper grandmother living. Since Margie has embarrassed her family by her marriage refusal, she is sent off to Paris, but it is not meant to be a pleasure trip. She is meant to act as chaperone to her wild cousin. Of course it goes horribly wrong. Rather than return home in utter humiliation, Margie finds a job in an American expat library and falls in with a group of artists. Paris in the 20s is a magical life and she begins to realize her dreams.
For Madeleine reading about Margie's Paris adventures is eye opening and she sees bits of herself in her grandmother's situation. Stuck in a life she does not like and that will never make her happy, she grasped at the only opportunity likely to pass her way. Madeleine, too, is stuck in an unhappy situation. She has turned away from every dream--to be an artist, to live as she likes even if it means being unmarried and more plain and frumpy than elegant and svelte. Instead she marries a man (surely the only one and best one likely to come her way according to her mother) she does not love and who really doesn't seem to like her much either. She is perfect wife to his successful businessman and ordered world. He doesn't want her to work or to eat too much or to look frumpy. And so she doesn't. She denies herself almost everything and certainly everything that makes her happy.
Madeleine's return home to Magnolia and the place where she started, the people she knew in school throws her world into a muddle. She sees where she came from and where she has ended up and the people she left behind have turned out to be different people than she expected. Magnolia turns out to be a place to came home to rather than a place to flee. And it is her grandmother's diaries that give her hope and courage.
I didn't mean to ramble on so about this and don't worry as I have not spoiled the best bits, but if you are in the mood for a good summer read, this is it. I'm not quite sure where to turn to next, as I am still in a frothy mood. I am quite enjoying D.E. Stevenson's Miss Buncle's Book (thanks to all who suggested it, you were right), but I have also picked up Anne Tyler's Vinegar Girl as it looks fun and amusing and just different enough plotwise but similar in feel for a next book. (And hey, my first-finally-Anne Tyler novel?!).