{"product_id":"swimming-in-paris-isbn-9780593833933","title":"Swimming in Paris","description":"\u003cb\u003eA Natalie Portman Book Club Pick\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“Sinewy, tough, sharp . . . Even though Schneck works at a scale that is deliberately small, insistently concrete, and extremely lean, her writing somehow exposes whole vistas of the female experience.” —\u003cb\u003eKatie Roiphe, \u003ci\u003eThe Atlantic\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eFrom the award-winning and bestselling French author Colombe Schneck, a woman’s personal journey through abortion, sex, friendship, love, and swimming\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003eAt fifty years old, while taking swimming lessons, I finally realized that my body was not actually as incompetent as I’d thought. My physical gestures had been, until then, small, worried, tense. In swimming I learned to extend them. I saw male bodies swimming beside me, and I swam past them, I was delighted, my breasts got smaller, my uterus stopped working. My body, by showing me who I was, allowed me to become fully myself.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/i\u003eIn \u003ci\u003eSeventeen, Friendship, and Swimming\u003c\/i\u003e, Colombe Schneck orchestrates a coming-of-age in three movements. Beautiful, masterfully controlled, yet filled with pathos, they invite the reader into a decades-long evolution of sexuality, bodily autonomy, friendship, and loss.\u003ci\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/i\u003eSchneck’s prose maintains an unwavering intimacy, whether conjuring a teenage abortion in the midst of a privileged Parisian upbringing, the nuance of a long friendship, or a midlife romance. \u003ci\u003eSwimming in Paris\u003c\/i\u003e is an immersive, propulsive triptych—fundamentally human in its tender concern for every messy and glorious reality of the body, and deeply wise in its understanding of both desire and of letting go.\u003ci\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e“Smart, candid . . . It’s not heartbreak that makes Schneck’s story so moving; it’s her exact honesty on all aspects of love and intimacy. A deep dive into female life.” —\u003cb\u003eLeigh Newman, \u003ci\u003eOprah Daily\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“Sinewy, tough, sharp . . . evocative, stylist, direct . . . In some sense, this memoir is for people who are the tiniest bit tired of memoir. It gives one the feeling of greater understanding, a sudden, expansive view from the top of a hill. Even though Schneck works at a scale that is deliberately small, insistently concrete, and extremely lean, her writing somehow exposes whole vistas of the female experience.” —\u003cb\u003eKatie Roiphe, \u003ci\u003eThe Atlantic\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“For Schneck, what’s unadorned is freer, and pure weightless freedom is not only possible but also the highest imaginable achievement . . . in the pool . . . Schneck learned to dispel her illusions, quiet her anxieties, and write with stunning directness.” \u003cb\u003e—Madeline Crum, \u003ci\u003eLos Angeles Review of Books\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“Beautiful . . . a gorgeous meditation on the vagaries of being alive.” \u003cb\u003e—\u003ci\u003ePublishers Weekly\u003c\/i\u003e (starred review)\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“Universal . . . with grace and hard-won knowledge. No pulled punches here, just truth.” \u003cb\u003e—\u003ci\u003eKirkus\u003c\/i\u003e (starred review)\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“\u003ci\u003eSwimming in Paris\u003c\/i\u003e is a brilliantly written, searingly intimate piece of biographical fiction, the story of a woman experiencing all of life . . . Schneck writes of herself at 17, at 30, at 40, at 50 and beyond with an understanding that is enviable. She unhesitatingly invites the reader into her blunt, beautiful, sometimes terrible thoughts, taking us through her triumphs and losses, and in the end reveals an unparalleled strength and empathy for herself as a woman, a friend, a lover, and a writer.” \u003cb\u003e—\u003ci\u003eBooklist\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“\u003ci\u003eSwimming in Paris\u003c\/i\u003e is a deep and devastating pleasure. Colombe Schneck writes with bracing intelligence and lucidity; she sees the world, and herself, with hard won clarity. A brave, beautiful, uncommonly tender book about love, death, sex and survival.” \u003cb\u003e—Katie Kitamura, author of \u003ci\u003eIntimacies\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“Colombe Schneck’s work expertly weaves the personal with the political. She deftly examines the cost of pleasure, the loss of adolescence, and the complicated bonds between women. Her writing reminds us of love’s ability to transcend death. She fearlessly reflects on the corporeal, how our bodies limit us and set us free. \u003ci\u003eSwimming in Paris\u003c\/i\u003e is a must read for anyone with curiosity and compassion.” \u003cb\u003e—Aline McKenna, showrunner and executive producer of \u003ci\u003eCrazy Ex-Girlfriend\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“Colombe Schneck writes with a tenderness and ferocity that’s entirely her own. These overlapping novellas are droll, fearless, and shot through with both romance and dread. Schneck offers a periscopic view into bourgeois Paris and captures the terror and truth of love like only a Frenchwoman can. Each time I read her, I swoon.” \u003cb\u003e—Pamela Druckerman, \u003ci\u003eNew York Times\u003c\/i\u003e Best-selling author of \u003ci\u003eBringing Up Bébé\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“This is valuable writing. It has immense vitality. You will encounter a female narrator whose direct and bright-eyed stare at the world, and herself, is without shame or faux modesty. At the same time, it is also a deep study of existence, at various ages and stages in life.” —\u003cb\u003eDeborah Levy, author of \u003ci\u003eReal Estate\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e “A dreamy, bruised, and carnal book that pretty much no American would write and pretty much every American will relish reading.” —\u003cb\u003eLauren Collins, author of \u003ci\u003eWhen in French\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e“This remarkable novel is both universal in its description of women’s friendships, and specific and particular in its insights into the French Bourgeoisie, which has always been utterly inaccessible to the English language reader. The experience of reading this book is both gutting and exhilarating.” \u003cb\u003e\u003cb\u003e—Ayelet Waldman, author of \u003ci\u003eA Really Good Day\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e“The ‘movements’ of \u003ci\u003eSwimming in Paris\u003c\/i\u003e thrum with life, sparkle with insight. It was an exhilarating read. I’ve never encountered a more perfect depiction of how the world shrinks when you understand that you’re a ‘girl’, rather than a ‘person’. With this book, Colombe Schneck became my Claire Parnet.” \u003cb\u003e—\u003cb\u003e\u003cb\u003eNatasha Brown, author of \u003c\/b\u003e\u003ci\u003e\u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eAssembly\u003c\/i\u003e \u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \u003cb\u003e \u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e“\u003ci\u003eSeventeen\u003c\/i\u003e mines a trauma all too common for women and is published at a time when France has just enshrined abortion rights in their constitution. I found it a tale of frank retrospection, a mature woman looking back on her naive self with love and respect. It is immensely readable and still sadly relevant. Give it to every young woman you know.” \u003cb\u003e—\u003cb\u003e\u003cb\u003eMonique Roffey, author of \u003c\/b\u003e\u003ci\u003e\u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eThe Mermaid of Black Conch\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003ci\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cb\u003eColombe Schneck \u003c\/b\u003eis the author of eleven books of fiction and non-fiction, she has received prizes from the Académie Française, Madame Figaro and the Society of French Writers. The recipient of scholarships from the Villa Medicis in Rome and the Institut Français, as well as a Stendhal grant which allows French writers to do research and write abroad, she also spent fifteen years as a broadcaster for Canal Plus, France TV and Radio France. She was born in Paris in 1966 where she still lives, is a graduate of Sciences Po and Université de Paris II with a degree in Public Law.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eLauren Elkin\u003c\/b\u003e is the author of several books, including \u003ci\u003eArt Monsters: Unruly Bodies in Feminist Art \u003c\/i\u003eand \u003ci\u003eFlâneuse: Women Walk the City in Paris, New York, Tokyo, Venice, and London\u003c\/i\u003e, a BBC Radio 4 Book of the Week, a \u003ci\u003eNew York Times\u003c\/i\u003e Notable Book of 2017, and a finalist for the PEN\/Diamonstein-Spielvogel Award for the Art of the Essay. Her essays on art, literature, and culture have appeared in the \u003ci\u003eLondon Review of Books\u003c\/i\u003e, \u003ci\u003eThe New York Times\u003c\/i\u003e, \u003ci\u003eGranta\u003c\/i\u003e, \u003ci\u003eHarper’s\u003c\/i\u003e, \u003ci\u003eLe Monde\u003c\/i\u003e, \u003ci\u003eLes Inrockuptibles\u003c\/i\u003e, and \u003ci\u003eFrieze\u003c\/i\u003e, among other publications. She is also an award-winning translator, most recently of Simone de Beauvoir’s previously unpublished novel \u003ci\u003eThe Inseparables\u003c\/i\u003e. After twenty years in Paris, she now lives in London.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eNatasha Lehrer \u003c\/b\u003eis a writer, translator, editor, and teacher. Her essays and reviews have appeared in \u003ci\u003eThe Guardian\u003c\/i\u003e, \u003ci\u003eThe Observer \u003c\/i\u003e(London),\u003ci\u003e The Times Literary Supplement\u003c\/i\u003e,\u003ci\u003e The Nation\u003c\/i\u003e,\u003ci\u003e Frieze\u003c\/i\u003e, and other journals. As literary editor of the \u003ci\u003eJewish Quarterly \u003c\/i\u003eshe has worked with writers including Deborah Levy, George Prochnik, and Joanna Rakoff. She has contributed to several books, most recently \u003ci\u003eLooking for an Enemy: 8 Essays on Antisemitism. \u003c\/i\u003eShe has translated over two dozen books, including works by Georges Bataille, Robert Desnos, Amin Maalouf, Vanessa Springora, and Chantal Thomas. In 2016, she won the Scott Moncrieff Prize for \u003ci\u003eSuite for Barbara Loden\u003c\/i\u003e by Nathalie Léger. She lives in Paris.SEVENTEEN\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eI never told anyone what happened to me in the spring of 1984. Not my ex-husband and children, or my closest friends. The shame, the embarrassment, the sadness-\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eI never told anyone how I accidentally became an adult.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLast year, in an interview with the daily newspaper \u003ci\u003eL'Humanité\u003c\/i\u003e, Annie Ernaux recalled that \"a solitude without limits surrounds women who get abortions.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eShe experienced this solitude in 1964. She was twenty-three years old. At the time, abortion was a crime punishable by law. She describes looking through libraries for books in which the heroine wants to terminate a pregnancy. She was hoping to find companionship in literature; she found nothing. In novels, the heroine was pregnant, and then she wasn't anymore; the passage between these two states was an ellipsis. The card catalog entry for \"Abortion\" at the library only listed scientific or legal journals, addressing the subject as a matter for criminal justice.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eShe felt even more resolutely cast back into her solitude, reduced to her social condition. Illegal abortion, in all its physical and moral brutality, was at that time a matter of obscure local rumor.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eEven if today abortion is protected by law in France, it still exists on the margins of literature.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWhen, in 2000, Annie Ernaux published \u003ci\u003eHappening (L'Événement)\u003c\/i\u003e, a narrative about a clandestine abortion before the Veil Law (which legalized abortion in France), the book didn't make much of an impact. It was an upsetting story. A journalist dealt the following blow to her: \"your book made me nauseous.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAbortion isn't a subject worthy of literature.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIt's a war you come through, somewhere between life and death, humiliation, disapproval, and regret.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eNo, it isn't a worthy subject.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eI listened to Annie Ernaux. What she said about silence, about embarrassment, about how \"women can take nothing for granted\" yet they \"do not mobilize enough.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAt a time when, here in Europe, legislation on the voluntary termination of a pregnancy is constantly called into question, when we hear about abortion becoming \"banal,\" when some people even go so far as to invent something called a \"convenient abortion,\" I find that I have to tell the story of my own \"happening\": what it meant, and continues to mean.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eNeither banal, nor convenient.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eI have no choice; I have to talk about what happened in the spring of 1984.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eI'm seventeen years old and I have a lover. I'm not in love but I have a lover. I sing as I cross the Boulevard Saint-Michel, I'm seventeen years old and I have a lover, and I am very happy. I am not like my mother, I am not her loneliness. I am myself, a girl who's sleeping with a boy without being in love with him. I am seventeen years old and I have a lover. Not a boyfriend, not a sweetheart, not some adolescent crush, a lover, something grown women have.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eI am an independent woman.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIt is 1984. The Left is in power. The death penalty has been abolished, the Fête de la musique has been invented, and the compact disc, they promise, cannot be broken. The prime minister is thirty-eight years old, AIDS is, to me, a disease at once threatening and far away, the feminist revolution has ended in triumph. On television, we watch and listen to \u003ci\u003eApostrophes, Droit de réponse\u003c\/i\u003e, and Claude-Jean Philippe's film club. We are all intelligent and modern.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAs I write this today, that world, which I thought indestructible, has ceased to exist. Comfort, parents, support, optimism, faith in power and in the women and men who embody it-all of it, gone.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eMy lover is a boy in my class. His name is Vincent, he lives on the Right Bank. He's tall, with tortoiseshell glasses. He's cute and he has a scooter. I'm not in love with him but I like him a lot.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eI was the one who chose him. During this time, I am in charge of these things. I decide, I designate. Everything is so easy. I don't have to ask my parents' permission to stay overnight at his house, or to spend the weekend there.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eI'm not afraid, I've read so many erotic scenes in books, I'm hungry to experience the gestures and sensations that so fascinate me on paper. Will it all be as arousing, luminous, and exciting as it is in books? I read and reread \u003ci\u003eEmmanuelle\u003c\/i\u003e: \"If she resisted, it was only the better to taste, bit by bit, the delights of letting herself go [. . .] the man's hand did not move. Using only its weight, it applied pressure to her clitoris [. . .] Emmanuelle felt a strange exaltation go up her arms, down her bare stomach, in her throat. A previously-unknown feeling of grey took hold of her.\" Could it be that good?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWe don't have as much experience with other people's bodies, we aren't lounging in first class on a flight from Paris to Bangkok, I'm not wearing nylon stockings or silk underpants, the hand on me isn't a stranger's but a classmate's. We are in a seventeen-year-old boy's narrow bed, in a room that still bears the traces of childhood-a map of the world, a Snoopy poster, a plaid throw. I want nothing more than that, and him.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eI don't tell him that he is my first, I don't want him to feel he has to be careful, or for him to think I'm inexperienced, or a prude. He is just the first of many, I hope. I make up some story about having been with an older man, but he is the man from Emmanuelle's plane, an American who barely speaks French.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWe quickly learn to touch like they do aboard the flight from Paris to Bangkok. All that's missing is the smell of the leather seats. We are always ready to begin again, we never get tired of doing it. His skin is soft, his skin is hard. It's very good.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eI am delighted. I have rid myself of my virginity, lived as if in a novel, I feel even more liberated. It is only the beginning. I am ready to make out with the entire world.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAnd the next day, the first morning, Vincent's mother makes breakfast for him and his new girlfriend.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWe are in that part of the world where a girl and a boy can spend the night together, with their well-meaning, indulgent parents in the next room.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThat spring, one Friday evening, I am sitting between my parents on the sofa in the living room. We are chatting, and suddenly I ask them:\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e-You don't happen to know any gynecologists, do you, in your group of friends?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThey are doctors, left-wing, they live on the Left Bank, they are open-minded, charming, cultured. This question strikes them as completely natural. They are delighted that their daughter is asking their opinion. They take this consultation very seriously: to whom can they entrust their daughter's body? Sitting on the large leather sofa, in the bright rotunda of a living room, spacious and warm, they think it over.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eMy mother has a thing for Tunisian gynecologists. She herself goes to Dr. Lucien Bouccara, Lulu for short, who is also a friend of hers. That's how it works, on the Left Bank in Paris in the 1980s.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eMy mother is persuaded that the best gynecologists are Tunisian. And that's not all: most of them also have blue eyes. For her it's a sign of professional competence.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eI do not agree. I do not want anything to do with Lulu, or Dr. Bouccara, the man who delivered me and who comes to dinner at our house.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e-I don't want to take off my clothes in front of Lulu, what are you, crazy?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eMy father has a different idea. He thinks I should make an appointment with Dr. L., who is also Tunisian, to make my mother happy. He knows him, he's serious and gentle, with an office on the Rue de l'Université.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThat sounds fine. I make an appointment. I go alone. In any case, I won't have to pay anything. I grew up with an implicit understanding according to which doctors do not charge each other money. Many things are given to me without a price tag, it is only a question of asking, of serving myself.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAt the first exam, I don't remember being afraid, or having been in pain. I am confident, absolutely certain that everything is fine, that everything always works out.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eDr. L. is friendly, and attentive, and takes the time to talk with me. On a sheet of paper he makes a few drawings with a felt-tip pen, explains how easily I can get pregnant. For now, while we wait for the pill to become effective, my boyfriend and I have to be very careful. And above all, I mustn't forget to take the pill every day.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eI feel like I'm in biology class; I'm slightly bored, and don't listen to everything. It's very simple: I want to go on the pill, I need a prescription. I leave feeling lighthearted. Everything is so easy.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eI'm studying for my exams, I'm wearing an agnès b. T-shirt with light blue and cream stripes, I'm sleeping with a boy, I'm on the pill. I'm not worried.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIn all of history has any seventeen-year-old girl ever had so much freedom?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eI have been allowed to read forbidden books for as long as I could read. My parents always find out later.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eI have very precise ideas about what I do and do not like.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eI am against: Patrice de Plunkett's editorials in \u003ci\u003eLe Figaro\u003c\/i\u003e, girls who wear too much makeup and dye their hair.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eI am for: no one imposing any rule on me, ever.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAfter the two volumes of \u003ci\u003eEmmanuelle\u003c\/i\u003e, I read, with the same eagerness, \u003ci\u003eStory of O \u003c\/i\u003eand \u003ci\u003eThe Blue Bicycle\u003c\/i\u003e. Then I read the magazine \u003ci\u003eFifteen,\u003c\/i\u003e which teaches girls how to kiss boys, and Henri Tincq's articles in \u003ci\u003eLe Monde\u003c\/i\u003e on what's going on in the world of religion.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eI am completely carefree. The first week, I take the pill every evening. After that, I sometimes forget. It's less interesting, no longer a novelty or a major event, just an obligation. I have trouble with obligations.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eI discover \u003ci\u003eIn Search of Lost Time\u003c\/i\u003e and nothing else matters. Nothing, that is, except sex, of course. Vincent and I explore each other's bodies, our earlobes, the tips of our noses, our ankles, the very soft skin behind each other's knees. Slide up the length of the thigh, the fold of the buttocks, linger, implore.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eJune is approaching, soon it will be time to take the \u003ci\u003ebaccalauréat.\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIn my high school the success rate is 99 percent. The exam is basically a formality. All year long, the teachers have encouraged students to dialogue with each other, kindling our imagination and creativity. May '68 wasn't that long ago. Hasn't the time come to get rid of this reactionary exam? And grades? And rankings? And term papers? Does any of it actually mean anything? The teaching staff try to boost our confidence. Our professors are all left-wing. They, too, wear clothing from agnès b. It's convenient; there's a boutique across the street from the school.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eOur school is the École Alsacienne, an experimental secular school that's been around for a hundred years but is still very modern. The director is Georges Hacquard, pedagogue and Latin scholar, kindly and generous. He knows all our first names, our stories, our strengths and our weaknesses. Yes, we have the right to have weaknesses. I don't listen in class, I don't do my homework, it's no big deal. I don't have to rebel against anyone or anything, not school, not my parents. Nobody forces us to obey, or to submit to any rule except that of responsibility to the collective and respect for other people. We have to make our own way, exercise our liberty, persevere with our will, be curious. Our parents and teachers have fought for that. We are the children of a new era.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eMy father has devised a version of family life that suits him. He lives on the Quai de la Tournelle, on the ground floor of a seventeenth-century \u003ci\u003ehôtel particulier\u003c\/i\u003e. There he receives his friends and mistresses. He is for: life, free love. He is against: monogamy, boredom, habit. On the weekend, he comes to see his wife and children in the Rue du Val-de-Grâce. I tell him, accusingly: \"you want to have your cake, eat it, and kiss the woman who baked it.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eSecretly, I think he's got the right idea. I wish so much that my mother would come out of her room, stop shying away from life.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eFrom time to time, my father lets me use his apartment. I like to be there, I settle in, I study for the bac, I read. I'm also allowed to see Vincent there.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eI look at the newspapers that pile up on the living room table. One day, I see a special issue of the Dossiers et Documents section of \u003ci\u003eLe Monde\u003c\/i\u003e, on the economic crisis. Another time, an issue of \u003ci\u003eLibération\u003c\/i\u003e from the winter. The editor in chief, Serge July, has written an editorial with the title: \"Vive la crise!\" \u003ci\u003eLong live the crisis\u003c\/i\u003e! I am intrigued and worried. Crisis? What crisis?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBut it's true. In the neighborhood we begin to see what they're calling the \"\u003ci\u003enouveaux pauvres\u003c\/i\u003e,\" the\u003ci\u003e newly poor.\u003c\/i\u003e Near my school, a woman with brassy blond hair and prominent roots asks me for money. Not so long ago, she went to the salon to get her hair colored, or bought a box of dye at the supermarket. She thought she was making herself beautiful and blond, she had time to take care of herself. That time is over.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eI glimpse the cracks that could appear in my world too.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eMy father leaves me alone for the weekend. He's off to hike in Megève. My boyfriend has gone back to his parents' house. I make myself something to eat for dinner, taramosalata slathered on toasted bread, my favorite.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAt my father's place we kids don't have a room of our own. I sleep on a bench covered in a white woolen rug and Moroccan throw pillows.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThat night, I lie down and cry. I don't recognize these tears. I thought I was the luckiest girl in the world, sitting on the big leather couch between my parents, comfortable and warm. But I am hurling myself against something hard, something I don't understand.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThese are new tears. I alone have provoked them.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eI am crying because-I'm sure now-I'm pregnant. And I'm alone.","brand":"Penguin Books","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":48233600155877,"sku":"NP9780593833933","price":18.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1842\/7735\/files\/9780593833933.jpg?v=1767737679","url":"https:\/\/k12savings.com\/products\/swimming-in-paris-isbn-9780593833933","provider":"K12savings","version":"1.0","type":"link"}