The entry below is being cross posted from Marjorie Arons Barron’s own blog.

The Paris Novel by Ruth Reichl is a confection, set in the 1980’s in Paris.  Stella, a 20-something copy editor in New York, leads a highly routinized life, the regularity of which is comforting to her.  She is estranged from her mother, Celia, who has never expressed love of her. Nor has Celia ever told her who her father was. That’s the backdrop.

The story begins when Celia’s mother dies, leaving Stella with a modest inheritance and a note that reads, “Go to Paris.” After initially dismissing the idea, Stella approaches her boss at the publishing house, who gives her a leave of absence to take the leap. Stella goes to Paris, single suitcase in hand, her life about to change.

While exploring the City of Lights, a serendipitous series of encounters connects Stella with colorful characters who will come to play significant roles in her life. In the process of exploring the city, Stella comes to discover herself. Her explorations of the narrow streets, little shops, parks, cathedrals and museums will not fail to delight the reader and lover of Paris.  A central locus for Stella was the Shakespeare & Company bookstore, near the Louvre, where the owner sheltered young seekers (“Tumbleweeds”) finding their way in the world.

Stella, whose Manhattan childhood had included many hours in museums, founds herself riveted by Manet’s “Olympia” and especially the model who posed for it.  What Stella discovered, about the model and about herself, will draw the reader in.  As the novel proceeds, the searching also encompasses unraveling the mystery of Stella’s father.

More than art, Paris’ food culture enveloped Stella, reflecting author Reichl’s years as a restaurant critic and editor of Gourmet Magazine. The selection of local ingredients, the creation of new ways of food preparation, the manner of presentation, the knowledge of wines, all combine in a delectable art form. Meals become lovely theater, dishes are paintings, all written about in ways that animate the senses. Above all else, is Stella’s blossoming as an adult, with a sense of mission, emotionally connected to other people.

If you love Paris, as I do, you won’t be bothered by the fact that the story depends partly on unlikely coincidences. The device of chance encounters ultimately weaves everything together to tell a wonderful story.  It’s a lovely adventure, told cinematically, and a delightful experience to partake of.

In Table for Two by Amor Towles, author of A Gentleman in Moscow and The Lincoln Highway, gives us a very different book.  It is six short stories set in New York, plus a novella set in Los Angeles. In general, I do not care for short stories.  With the very best of them, I end up frustrated, wanting more, and indeed Towles’ short stories did leave me wanting more. That said, if you accept the limitation of the format (which I had been capable of doing in the cases of, for example, Nathaniel Hawthorne or Edgar Allen Poe), then I recommend Towle’s short stories as beautifully written with deeply interesting characters and intriguing twists and turns at their conclusion. Not to bury the lede, the novella part is far less satisfying.

In the first story, “The Line,” a Communist Muscovite turns his willingness to stand in daily lines for other people in Russia into an income-producing enterprise. He immigrates to Manhattan during the Depression giving every hint that the necessity of standing in soup lines will similarly be transformed into a source of income.

Towles turns to a more explicitly capitalist theme in “The Ballad of Timothy Touchett,”  set in the 1990’s. This time, he tells the story of an aspiring but unpublished author, who is lured by rare-books dealer Mr. Pennybrook to use his penmanship skills to forge autographs of famous authors, increasing the value of the first-edition books to be sold. The once-innocent Touchett catches on to the con and extracts a larger share of the proceeds from Pennybrook.  I won’t tell you the outcome.

“Hasta Luego” tells of travelers stranded in the airport by a snowstorm. A key figure a gregarious man who turns out to be an alcoholic.  “I Will Survive” unravels the mystery of a husband who disappears every Saturday afternoon, allegedly to play squash, though his wife suspects him of having an affair. Is he? Read and find out.  Both these say a lot about the terms under which marriages are negotiated.

A favorite of mine is “The Bootlegger,” set largely in Carnegie Hall, featuring a husband and wife, he with classical music attendance just another activity to be checked off in his upward climb on the Manhattan social ladder.  The wife is initially indifferent to the symphonic canon, but Towles elegantly develops their characters, and the narrative broadens to encompass the subscriber seated next to the husband. How it all plays out will leave you wishing Towle had written more about what happens afterward.

The novella part of Table for Two, set in Los Angeles in the days of Olivia de Haviland and Errol Flynn, was a slog for me.  It had a Damon Runyonesque feel to it, but the narrative had too many digressions. New characters seemed stereotypes, and their backstories, albeit told with Towles’ attention to detail, simply became too-obvious devices to build tension leading up to the conclusion of the novella.

In short, if you like short stories (and I confess to enjoying Towle’s offering), read the first part of Table for Two. Don’t be embarrassed to skip the second half.