When I see old friends in Washington, I’ll quickly home in on that nasal tone that the French say Americans have, and that I’ve always denied existed, until recently. During our chats, it’ll dawn on me that if I add up all the years I’ve lived in France the sum comes close to half my life, and yet still I’ve never considered France home, probably because it’s tough putting home behind you. You say good-bye to the ghosts. And when that pain of losing those you loved gradually eases, a sadness wells up, a sadness that strangely comes from relief. Pain, I realize, is a way of remembering everything in high res detail, and without it, my parents dying and my childhood gradually feels smoothed over, cleaned up, and replaceable. And for me, that’s awfully sad.
If you go to Marseilles, you might see a series of sculptures sprinkled around the city by the artist Bruno Catalano titled Les Voyageurs. Each bronze statue features a man or woman walking with a bag, but half of their body is missing, as if a giant shark has taken out a chunk of their torso and legs. For some reason (and I don’t know how) the statues manage to stand upright, the subject still looking forward, and whatever part is missing is replaced by whatever their present background holds. It could be a seaside view of the old port or a busy crowd at a bus stop, an ATM machine off to the left.
As an American living in France, I often feel like these statues. The chunk that is missing, your heart and your guts, is the home you’ve put behind you, filled in by a present that’s colorful and in 3D, but that doesn’t quite resemble you. That which does, the still bronze fixed part, is your head and its memories and the bag you hold, which (now that you’re an expat) you know you can grab in a flash to claim another place as home, wherever that may be.
* * *
Sick of paying hundreds of dollars per month for years of storage, I eventually bit the bullet and shipped Mom and Dad’s belongings by container across the ocean to Le Havre, the boat probably following the same route Mom’s steamer took in the fifties. They were then loaded onto a truck and driven down to our home in the Perche.
There, countless boxes and crates were dumped and sat another two years until, last summer, while Bibi and Otto were at summer camp, Anaïs and I opened them up one by one. Since there was no inventory, each box was a Christmas gift full of memories that would pour out once the tape came undone and the top was opened. Otto got my grandfather’s forty-eight-star American flag. The silverware we polished and kept in the side cupboard for Christmas. Bibi and Anaïs took the furs. We put Dad’s piano in the corner. And the framed photos of Uncle Charlie from his years at Yale went on the mantelpiece over the fireplace, next to Dad’s Emmys.
What I most cherished, though, were all of Mom’s paintings, some of them eight by ten feet. Each was different, but the style was the same: abstract and purple-headed, acrylic, and all painted during the sixties and seventies when I’d just been born, around the time I could walk and sit with her in the studio high on turpentine. As a child, I didn’t understand these works. Faces weren’t in proportion; hands were stuck on torsos at the wrong spot. Mom, to me, couldn’t draw well, so how could she be an artist? There were no classic landscapes, no Bob Ross sunrises. She’d painted the people she knew. Mr. Peele in Hatteras who drove Uncle Frank’s boat. My friend Justin and me in our Speedos driving our Big Wheels. There were charcoals, too, from Paris in the fifties, which she’d sketched while living there as a student: kids on horses in the Tuileries, parked bicycles near Les Halles, men selling books along the Seine, things I’ve seen millions of times in Paris and don’t give two shits about, but that, to her, seemed exotic parts of a place far from home.
Now there’s an opening in the works in Paris for Mom’s paintings, which people call a vernissage, and which for years I fought, probably out of an odd desire to keep her all to myself and not to share her with the world. There’s also a stack of French nationality papers I’m supposed to file, to become French as well as American, to accept once and for all, home is here. You could say that I’m finally accepting the pull part of France. I’m no longer fleeing my parents, because there’s nobody to flee from. We’re all here now, getting acclimated.
With all the new antiques and paintings and oriental rugs, our home in the Perche now resembles an upscale country inn more than a weekend house. Friends come out in the half dozens if there’s a Monday holiday. Some, on an hour’s notice, jump on a train Friday evening and are here by dinner, knocking on the door, smiling and smelling of perfume. And while the night kicks into gear, and everyone’s inside, I’ll venture out to the garden and look back into the party from a distance. If you saw me there you’d see a strange man in a field peeing in the dark, but from my point of view, the house looks like an illuminated dollhouse, alive and breathing with life-sized figurines. The piano playing, the smokers, the laughers, the sixties paintings, the kids running through the tall adults chased by a wire-haired dog all look eerily familiar, taking me back to the America I most want to remember and refuse to let go of.
And there in the cold under those bright stars only the countryside can provide, I smile, because, once again, I can’t hear or understand much of what’s being said or why people are laughing or how it is I’ve even gotten here, for that matter, to this odd place I now call home. But just the way I sat on the staircase during those raucous nights in Georgetown on the outside looking in, I again find myself observing and analyzing, translating and interpreting, learning and imitating, repeating and polishing, until the complicated, beautiful description of what it’s like to live in this wacky chez moi is ready—ready to be written.
The end/La fin
Acknowledgments
This book owes its life to my agent, the warrior queen Lindsay Edgecombe, who saw something in the burning coals of an idea and forged it into a shining sword. Without Lindsay’s input and guidance, her meticulous notes and tough choices, her daily encouragement and military resolve, none of this would have happened. Zero. Thanks also to those in my warrior queen’s cavalry—the Levine Greenberg Rostan Agency, where Dan, Jim, Beth, Melissa, Ariel, and Tim have been my extended family and friends long before they were my advocates. I heart them dearly.
Top billing also in order for the Mother of Dragons, Laura Tisdel, who saw the same book Lindsay did and who pushed me to get there draft by draft, brick by brick, crafting and story arc’ing, tinkering and tailoring, always with bold ideas and always with a devious sense of humor I can relate to. Those who man Laura’s castle at Penguin Viking, namely Ben Petrone and Amy Sun, have worked overtime on this book, too, making my lines cleaner and less cringeworthy and me more presentable. There’s also Patrick Nolan at Penguin, who, too, was at the ground floor of this whole shebang, telling me he wanted a book about France he hadn’t seen before, something he’d be proud to show to his French in-laws. I hope he got it.
Then there are the confrères: Adam Rapoport at Bon Appétit, who not only gave me my break at GQ but also gave me the chance to pick up a pen. My foxhole partner and literary champion Michael Hainey at Esquire, who pushed me to tell my stories and never wavered in believing I’d be an author one day. Both these guys always pick up the tab at Gene’s by the way, and I love them for it. I can’t forget my fam at French Vanity Fair starting with the Tsarina herself, Anne Boulay, who carved me out of clay and made me who I am.
And where would I be without all of the talented editors who’ve made my stuff readable this past decade? The VF team: Vincent Truffy, Sibylle Grandchamp, Pierre Groppo, Olivier Bouchara, Raphael Goubet, and the godfather himself, Michel Denisot. My squad at GQ: Jim Nelson, Will Welch, Nicolas Santolaria, Jacques Braunstein, Etienne Menu, Emmanuel Poncet, Matt Le Maux, and James Sleaford; and at Mediapart—the angelic Géraldine Delacroix. I also need to thank my longtime fan and fellow journalist/writer Stéphane Marchand, who hired me for a column once, but only if I wrote it personally and with humor.
All of these folks, mind you, worked at some point or another with my translato
r extraordinaire, Adèle Carasso, who changed my words, but always kept my voice.
Hats off to those behind the scenes, too, who’ve kept me solvent during this writing period: Michelle, Carla, and Sandrine at Voices. Jean and Guillaume at Chez Jean. David Millner and Ursula Held at Boldset. Lucy and Diane at Legacy Management. Steve Leader and Mike and Marilee at Rexton Management. My lawyers, Burt Ross and Steve Miller, Steve Horton and Gary Schreiber. And, of course, my DC bench mob: Laing Bowles and Dick Schoenfeld, the great Jim Alexander, and the revered Paul Cromelin.
To all my friends who’ve listened to my stories over and over and who each time laughed and convinced me they were worth telling. The Americans: Dan and Tina, Josh and Jess, Rich and Kara, BR and Janine, Jason and Bessie, and Nick and Julie. The French: Arnaud, Jérôme and Cécile, Anne-Isabelle and David, Vincent and Claire, Laurent and Anne, Nicolas Kieffer, Paul-Henri, Fred and Emilie, Fred and Aude, Olivia and Adrien, Sophie and Mathieu, Elizabeth and Arnaud, Antoine and Sophia, Xavier and Aude, Pierre and Veronique, and my fellow American Jim Haynes, all of whom at one time or another hosted a dinner party not knowing they were also giving me tons of material for this book.
I can’t forget the DC contingent. Teachers at St. Albans who taught me the craft, Mark McGarry and all the McGarrys. Vernon and all the Hollemans, Sally Bedell Smith, the Marlows, and the Kenwood Country Club, who gave me a place to write over these past summers; my childhood friends and neighbors from T Street, who still remind me of my parents, and the parties they threw and who’ve given me a lifetime of memories to work with.
On the family front: Missouri, and Charlie and my grandmother Margaret, the Murdochs, including Molly and Mara, the von Sothens, Sue and Pete and Robert (all of whom at some point shared with me stories of our family and my mom). And bien sûr, there’s the bellest belle-famille a man could have: Hughes, Laure and Alain, Leïto, Stephane and Lazarre, Auntie Anne, Loreleï and John, Yolaine, Sachko, and Sibyl-Anna.
Bisous as well to my Percheron peeps: Lucien and Jocelyne, Sergei and Solange, Nathalie and Guillaume, Brigitte and Yann, Edwige, Alexandre and Amélie, our contractors, Ben and Arnaud, who put a roof over our head. Each of them gave me insight into the Perche and its people and each has confirmed to me in their own way why we’ve stayed.
Big ups to all of Bibi’s and Otto’s teachers, riding coaches, camp counselors, and Road’s End Farm directors (I see you, Tom Woodman), soccer coaches, babysitters, assistantes maternelles, crèche handlers, and filles au pair, who looked after my children while I was probably off somewhere writing this book.
To May and Alvin, who’ve taken care of us and our home for ages. To my wonderful neighbors Marie-Christine, Antoine and Virginie, and my fellow expat, Mark, at Bob’s Bake Shop, who shared with me their stories about the neighborhood and gave me good coffee and bagels and a place to write every morning.
To Otto’s and Bibi’s friends who’ve kept me young and brought me up to speed with French slang. Najl-Adams, Gabin, Jeanne, Lucien, Lou, Titouan, and to all of those who crashed Bibi’s sweet sixteen. I know who you are.
To my dog, Bogart, and all my late pets: Socks, Dr Pepper, Teddy, Baron, and Frisco for their loyalty and companionship and for being the best cowriters anyone could have.
Finally to my wife, Anaïs (you’re in the Dedication so stop complaining!), who’s lived and breathed this book for almost three years now and amazingly still hasn’t left me. And my two children, Bibi and Otto, the ones who begged me at night for more stories about “when you were little” or “Granny and Gramps,” and who indirectly inspired me to write some of these chapters. All three of these musketeers have given me a life I never dreamed of having.
Finally, thanks to my dad, Dave, the one who misses out on all the glory (once again) and who finds himself (once again) at the bottom here, holding everyone up on his shoulders, much like those human pyramids we used to make at the beach—smiling and wincing “hurry up” while the rest of us looks forward and does one big group “cheese!” as the camera goes . . . 2 . . . 1 . . .
Click.
About the Author
John von Sothen is an American columnist living in Paris, where he covers entertainment and society issues for French Vanity Fair. Von Sothen has written for both the American and French GQ, Slate, Technikart, Libération, and The New York Observer; he has written for TV at Canal+ and MTV; and he is now penning a column for the political site Mediapart. Von Sothen often does voice-overs in English for French perfumes and luxury brands, occasionally performs stand-up comedy at The New York Comedy Night in the SoGymnase Comedy Club in Paris (in French and English), and is a routine guest on the French radio station Europe 1 discussing all things US related.
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Monsieur Mediocre Page 27
