Black Girl in Paris

When I first cracked this book open, I was seated in the back of a minivan with a boring 4 hour ride to my next gig. I just picked this book up to keep myself busy. Instead, what happened I can hardly explain. I found myself captured by the main character's world, exploring my life lessons, as she described in detail her trek through life in Paris. Although I am brown, I am not African-American, but many of the translucent realities of color's impact on experience hit home. In addition, the challenge of balancing the need to make ends meet with the intense desire to bite into every rich experience and note down what we feel in a journal to write formally later on... well, many of us face that difficulty everyday. We all have a need to create and leave behind some mark of immortality. We also have the burden of coin, which keeps us fed and housed. But what if, like the main character, we could just free-fall and try something different? Living adventurously and not knowing the ending to our stories is what gives texture, color and flavor to our lives, and this emulation through vivid storytelling, as penned by Shay Youngblood is the reason why this has gone on my shelf from fiction to guidebook.

This book by Shay Youngblood has got me doing a little daydreaming. I actually read it while I was on a business flight to Paris, and by the time I reached, I found myself looking for places that the author so vividly described. Not that I was using the book as a pseudo map, but I was also nibbling on her savory, poetic words. I especially enjoyed the fact that the narrator's experiences were so unpredictable yet so entertaining. I anticipated what the next sentence, paragraph and chapter held . Besides my enthusiasm with this novel, I was totally disturbed at the thought of an old, sickly woman getting off in a bath tub as the narrator washed and stroked her area. I outed my incense right then and there. It would've been more erotic if it had been a younger person---say that bajan girl that she fell inlove with. I think the lesbian attraction between the narrator and her bajan friend should've been more pronounced. I liked the steamy bath house scene, but by the time things seem to be getting a little too hot, it cooled off, leaving me hanging like how a delayed orgasm would. Nevertheless, it was subtle and very sensuous. Overall, I'm quite impressed with Youngblood's talent. I'm truely looking forward to her next book.

I truly enjoyed this book. But woe betide an author who dares to tread on the sacred ground of the Black Expatriate Experience in Paris! How dare she see the same sights and drink at the same cafes in your search for her own experience. The nay-sayers who have phoned in their caustic remarks about this lovely book have completely missed the point. This is not about Baldwin or Wright. They came before. Eden came after. This book addresses the strange relationship one can have to a Black History lived by someone else somewhere else. A strange relationship to your own dreams when those dreams are filtered through the experience of others. Eden comes to appreciate and understand her unique relationship to Paris partly as a result of seeking out what was cliche about it, what was presented to her as "the real Paris" and finding out how little that meant. The impression I got from Eden at the books close is radically different than the expectations she had at its beginning. Anyhow. Decide for yourself. I'm eager to see more work from this talented writer, who dares to stray off the beaten path where "Sista gurl" writers and the Negro Intellectual Elite walk their tired talk.

For readers more comfortable with "microwave literature", that method of storytelling which gives quick and compact packets feelings and reactions, Shay Youngblood's "Black Girl in Paris" will frustrate and confuse. For the rest of us, the novel is a tender, poignant, story filled with beautiful images of a young woman's experience. Youngblood's writing style lingers on the palate and invites the reader to roll the story around on the tongue and savor each word. Moved as I was by Youngblood's first novel, "Soul Kiss", I anxiously awaited her second attempt and she does not disappoint. From the first sentence to the last, I was swept up in Eden's experiences in Paris and the awakening of her own artistic presence. "Black Girl in Paris" is a beautiful novel by a gifted writer with a unique talent. Youngblood is able to tell a story, convey her message and leave room for the reader's own experience. All of which make for a truly engaging read and an appreciation for a writer that does not consider her audience too inept to "get it".

In 1986 after graduating from college, Eden decides to follow the literary roots of many African-Americans who lived in Paris in the twenties. She knows about Hughes and Baker after hearing about their bios from her adopted parents. Like her heroes who lived in France before her, Eden plans to earn some income by performing menial tasks beneath most of the natives even as she seeks her freedom to write the great novel.However, though the tasks for the most part could be performed by anyone, Eden finds her employers constantly giving her demeaning instructions. Freedom seems buried under an avalanche of bureaucratic nonsense. However, the employer bureaucracy consists of ordinary people such as two parents and an artist. Eden finds a bit of freedom when she turns to minor thievery after meeting and falling in love with a West Indian expatriate. Turning desperate to at least meet the great Baldwin, Eden wonders if freedom is just another seven-letter word. BLACK GIRL IN PARIS is an intriguing examination of the twentieth century African-American history in the French capital through the dreams of a young expatriate. Though the tips on being an American in Paris slows down the tale, the look inside at the rich heritage is a far cry from Gene Kelly in this interesting and fun to read novel. Eden is an intriguing character as she struggles between the wonderful dreams of the free life that her family painted to her about American Blacks in Paris and her own inability to taste any of it. With novels like this one and SOUL KISS, Shay Youngblood provides readers with an exciting look inside the heart of African-Americans. Harriet Klausner