Book review:Dreaming in French
(China Daily/Agencies)
Updated: 2009-09-29 09:47
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By Megan McAndrew, published by Scribner
Americans in France inhabit a crowded literary neighborhood, but McAndrew's novel brings an original sensibility to this turf, as well as a plot that takes satisfying, unexpected turns. Charlotte Sanders is an expat teenager in Paris in the late 1970s, the daughter of a reserved lawyer and a flamboyant mother.
Her story begins as the entertaining tale of a seemingly jaded adolescent who is dangerously naive about matters of the heart. Soon Charlotte realizes her adored mother, Astrid, is being drawn away from the family by her interest in the Polish dissident movement and her attachment to one of its leaders. When Astrid gets in over her head, Charlotte and her sister find themselves in Warsaw, trying to get their mother out of trouble.
The family is shattered, as are the cozy myths that have sustained Charlotte; she and Astrid flee to New York to build a new life. Mc-Andrew can do cross-cultural humor with the flair of Diane Johnson, but she also has her own kind of sophistication - an international knowingness coupled with a flexible American practicality.
