Paris Bride

"In July 1905, in Paris, a young woman, a bride, becomes Marie Schad. In April 1984, in London, Marie Schad is declared to be no more--indeed, to never have been, and returns to France. Paris Bride pursues this no-woman in a wild attempt to glimpse her face in the modernist crowd. With increasing desperation the pages of Stephane Mallarmé, Oscar Wilde, Franz Kafka, Virginia Woolf, Katherine Mansfield, Louis Aragon, André and Walter Benjamin are all ransacked for traces of Marie. What is pieced precariously together is an experimental life--a properly modernist life, a life that, by its very obscurity, lives the obscure life of modernism itself.

A memoir in essays that expands on the viral sensation “The Crane Wife” with a frank and funny look at love, intimacy, and self in the twenty-first century. From friends and lovers to blood family and chosen family, this “elegant masterpiece” (Roxane Gay, New York Times bestselling author of Hunger) asks what more expansive definitions of love might offer ​us all. A BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR: TIME, THE GUARDIAN, GARDEN & GUN "Hauser builds their life's inventory out of deconstructed personal narratives, resulting in a reading experience that's rich like a complicated dessert—not for wolfing down but for savoring in small bites." —The New York Times “Clever, heartfelt, and wrenching.” —Time “Brilliant.” —Oprah Daily Ten days after calling off their wedding, CJ Hauser went on an expedition to Texas to study the whooping crane. After a week wading through the gulf, they realized they'd almost signed up to live someone else's life. What if you released yourself from traditional narratives of happiness? What if you looked for ways to leave room for the unexpected? In Hauser’s case, this meant dissecting pop culture touchstone, from The Philadelphia Story to The X Files, to learn how not to lose yourself in a relationship. They attended a robot convention, contemplated grief at John Belushi’s gravesite, and officiated a wedding. Most importantly, they mapped the difference between the stories we’re asked to hold versus those we choose to carry. Told with the late-night barstool directness of your wisest, most bighearted friend, The Crane Wife is a book for everyone whose path doesn't look the way they thought it would; for everyone learning to find joy in the not-knowing and to build a new sort of life story, a new sort of family, a new sort of home to live in.

A must-have for the best wedding inspiration and resources in Paris. America’s love affair with Paris spans generations. For many, Paris is the epitome of sophistication, good taste, style and romance. The Paris Wedding is a full-color, idea-packed, goto guide for globally minded trendsetters who are in love with the style and romance of Paris. Not just a resource of practical information for those planning a wedding IN Paris, but The Paris Wedding is also a stand-alone handbook full of stylish tips and glamorous photography to help add that Parisian je ne sais quoi to any celebration. Kimberley Petyt is the owner of Parisian Events, a wedding and event-planning agency catering to English-speakers in Paris. She writes the popular blog “Parisian Party: Tales of an American Wedding Planner in Paris” (parisianevents.com/parisianparty/). She was also a monthly columnist for the nationally distributed The French Paper, where she wrote for more than a year about living and working as an expat in Paris. Petyt and the business have been featured in print publications such as Real Simple Weddings, Get Married Magazine, Essence Magazine, Eco-Beautiful Weddings, Cosmopolitan China, and France Magazine. Most recently, she was featured in the New York Times Magazine “Summer 2011 Travel” issue, highlighting her skills as a cultural liaison for brides seeking to marry in Paris. Ms. Petyt lives in Paris.

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • A deeply evocative novel of ambition and betrayal that captures the love affair between two unforgettable people, Ernest Hemingway and his wife Hadley—from the author of Love and Ruin and When the Stars Go Dark “A beautiful portrait of being in Paris in the glittering 1920s—as a wife and as one’s own woman.”—Entertainment Weekly NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY People • Chicago Tribune • NPR • The Philadelphia Inquirer • Kirkus Reviews • The Toronto Sun • BookPage Chicago, 1920: Hadley Richardson is a quiet twenty-eight-year-old who has all but given up on love and happiness—until she meets Ernest Hemingway. Following a whirlwind courtship and wedding, the pair set sail for Paris, where they become the golden couple in a lively and volatile group—the fabled “Lost Generation”—that includes Gertrude Stein, Ezra Pound, and F. Scott Fitzgerald. Though deeply in love, the Hemingways are ill prepared for the hard-drinking, fast-living, and free-loving life of Jazz Age Paris. As Ernest struggles to find the voice that will earn him a place in history and pours himself into the novel that will become The Sun Also Rises, Hadley strives to hold on to her sense of self as her roles as wife, friend, and muse become more challenging. Eventually they find themselves facing the ultimate crisis of their marriage—a deception that will lead to the unraveling of everything they’ve fought so hard for. A heartbreaking portrayal of love and torn loyalty, The Paris Wife is all the more poignant because we know that, in the end, Hemingway wrote that he would rather have died than fallen in love with anyone but Hadley.

Laure Beausejour has grown up in a dormitory in Paris surrounded by prostitutes, the insane, and other forgotten women. She dreams with her best friend, Madeleine, of using her needlework skills to become a seamstress and one day marry a nobleman. But in 1669, Laure is sent across the Atlantic to New France with Madeleine as filles du roi. The girls know little of the place they are being sent to, except for stories of ferocious winters and Indians who eat the hearts of French priests. To be banished to Canada is a punishment worse than death. Bride of New France explores the challenges Laure faces coming into womanhood in a brutal time and place. From the moment she arrives in Ville-Marie (Montreal) she is expected to marry and produce children with a brutish French soldier who himself can barely survive the harsh conditions of his forest cabin. But through her clandestine relationship with Deskaheh, an allied Iroquois, Laure finds a sense of the possibilities in this New World. What happens to a woman who attempts to make her own life choices in such authoritative times?