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Likely Stories: The Little French Bistro by Nina George

Mythical love story set in Brittany by the talented writer, Nina George.

I’m Jim McKeown, welcome to Likely Stories, a weekly review of fiction, non-fiction, poetry, and biographies.

Last year I read Nina George’s wonderful novel, The Little Paris Bookshop, which was her first novel translated into English.  Now she has released her second novel, The Little French Bistro.  This novel is quite different from Bookshop, but I thoroughly enjoyed it. 

Based on Paris Bookshop, I made several assumptions which proved to be false.  First, Nina George is not French; she is German.  I met her at a book reading in Austin Texas recently and learned she was born in Germany and still lives there with her husband.  She proved to be gracious and funny as she slipped back and forth among German, French, and English.  After the reading, she signed my books, and hugged every audience member who wanted a special souvenir of the lecture.

Marianne Messmann is married to Lothar, a man with no sense of romance and a thoroughly unpleasant personality.  They have been married for about forty years, and Marianne has reached a breaking point.  George opens the novel with a chilling scene.  “It was the first decision she had ever made on her own, the very first time she was able to determine the course of her life. // Marianne decided to die.  Here and now, down below in the waters of the Seine, late on this grey day.  On her trip to Paris. […] The water was cool, black and silky.  The Seine would carry her on a quiet bed of freedom to the sea.  Tears ran down her cheeks; strings of salty tears.  Marianne was smiling and weeping at the same time.  Never before had she felt so light, so free, so happy” (1).  A homeless man rescues her, and she is taken to a hospital to contact her husband.  She then dresses and escapes on a train headed to a remote corner of northwestern France.  All the while on this trip, she plans to reattempt her suicide of the coast of Brittany.

A group of nuns give her a ride to the little fishing village Kerdruc.  She meets a number of the residents, who welcome her with open hearts.  Each day she resolves to jump into the sea, but she delays a day, then another, and another.  She gets a job working at a bistro then gradually she is absorbed into the community.  Marianne begins to devise an entirely new life for herself.  Then Lothar shows up, and everything is threatened.  I won’t spoil the ending, but it is worth following Marianne to one of three possible conclusion.

Marianne is an empathetic woman, George writes, “She took a deep breath, carefully picked up the crab and set it down on the polished steel table.  It scrambled around a bit as she searched among the bottles on the sideboard before reaching for the cider vinegar and pouring a few drops into the creature’s mouth.  The clatter of its pincers on the steel surface grew fainter before suddenly ceasing altogether. // ‘This may sound odd, but you can kill humanely too,’ […] ‘Vinegar sends them to sleep, you know.’  She cupped her hands to her cheeks, cocked her head and closed her eyes, then lowered the crab into the boiling water.’  ‘It’s bath time.  See, it doesn’t hurt so much’” (85-86).

Nina George has written a love story like few others in The Little French Bistro.  Kerdruc is a mythical place like no others.  I can only hope another novel will soon appear by this talented, funny, and interesting writer.  5 Stars.

Likely Stories is a production of KWBU.  I’m Jim McKeown.  Join me again next time for Likely Stories.

Life-long voracious reader, Jim McKeown, is an English Instructor at McLennan Community College. His "Likely Stories" book review can be heard every Thursday on KWBU-FM! Reviews include fiction, biographies, poetry and non-fiction. Join us for Likely Stories every Thursday featured during Morning Edition and All Things Considered with encore airings Saturday and Sunday during Weekend Edition.