Critics' Opinion:
Readers' rating:
Published Feb 2011
288 pages
Genre: Literary Fiction
Publication Information
American academic Trevor Stratton discovers a box full of artifacts from World War I as he settles into his new office in Paris. The pictures, letters, and objects in the box relate to the life of Louise Brunet, a feisty, charming Frenchwoman who lived through both World Wars.
As Trevor examines and documents the relics the box offers up, he begins to imagine the story of Louise Brunet's life: her love for a cousin who died in the war, her marriage to a man who works for her father, and her attraction to a neighbor in her building at 13 rue Thérèse. The more time he spends with the objects though, the truer his imaginings of Louise's life become, and the more he notices another alluring Frenchwoman: Josianne, his clerk, who planted the box in his office in the first place, and with whom he finds he is falling in love.
"[An] imaginative, sensual rendering of a Parisian woman's life..." - Publishers Weekly
"This gimmicky tale unravels somewhat when Stratton ... implicates himself in the history in which he's become so involved." - Booklist
"This wonderfully pieced together bit of time travel, history, and especially many types of love would be an excellent choice for a women's reading group." - Library Journal
"A creaky romance that lacks substance. But the book is an interactive-marketing goldmine: Readers can use codes to link up to the book's website." - Kirkus
This information about 13, rue Thérèse was first featured
in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.
Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
Elena Mauli Shapiro was born and raised in Paris, France, in an apartment below the real-life Louise Brunet's. She has a BA from Stanford University in English and French, an MFA in Fiction Writing from Mills College, and an MA in Comparative Literature from UC Davis. This novel was a finalist for the 2009 Bakeless literary prize.
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