Paris in 1965 and an elderly lady lives in an attic under the metro counting out coffee beans. She rides the crowded metro carriages to feel the warmth of other bodies and watches hot pancake batter drip from the hands of street sellers. But then, one hot day, when she’s rootling around in a bin for an orange she finds instead a smelly old fox fur and everything changes, ‘a winter fur in summer.’
‘She was breathing the oxygen meant for people who had spent their day working.’
It’s a book about loneliness and trying to find a connection to the rhythms of everyday life and how, in finding something to love (and she finds the humour in it too!) that turns to an acceptance of her situation with her fox fur, her few possessions and her imagination. Not lonely anymore but just alone. 
She gives a running commentary as she walks around Paris in her battered hat and shiny green coat, her childhood and past experiences folded into her existence. It’s funny and knowing: ‘After six, the wind in Paris grows stronger and disarranges all our principles.’ but it isn’t sweet or sentimental. In the introduction Deborah Levy says it’s ‘a way of staring at life and making from it a kind of tough poetry.’
I read this one last summer and although I didn’t love it I found it interesting and unusual. I’m glad I read it.
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I felt like that actually but I think I need to read it again – there’s a lot going on in the layers that I think I missed.
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It’s lovely to see a review of the Leduc here. I read it over the summer and really enjoyed it. Somewhat reminiscent of early Jean Rhys, albeit with an older protagonist at the heart of the story.
(PS I hope you’re doing okay…)
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Thank you Jacqui. I hadn’t thought of Goodmorning Midnight, but you’re right, I must go back and re read, that’s so interesting, I had completely forgotten!
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Thank you for the review! This seems like an interesting book.
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