Following Helen Constantine's highly successful
Paris Tales, Paris Metro Tales
offers 22 remarkable short stories set throughout Paris—all connected by the underground tunnels of its famed Metro.
The journey begins at the Gare du Nord, stops at 20 underground stations along the way, and ends at Lamarck-Caulaincourt, each story corresponding to one of the 20
arrondissements
of Paris. Readers are invited to find their way through the underground, changing trains when necessary and imaginatively emerging to read a story it its original setting. The stories range from the 15th-century account of the miraculous Saint Genevieve, patron saint of Paris, through tales by favorite writers such as Zola, Simenon, Balzac, and Maupassant. Though connected by the metro, the subjects of these short stories vary widely: from Martine Delerm's gripping narrative of the last hours of Modigliani's mistress to Gérard de Nerval's rich evocation of the bustling market in Les Halles in the 1850s, Colette's unlikely involvement in a traffic accident near the Opéra, and Boulanger's fine description of a blackly funny experience in Père Lachaise. In addition to writers well known to the English-speaking world, this collection also includes French authors whose work deserves wider attention, including Frédéric Fajardie, Martine Delerm, Marie Desplechin, Paul Fournel, and Claude Dufresne. Each story is illustrated with a black-and-white photograph and the book includes a map and suggested itinerary through the metro system.
Perfect for fans of
Paris Tales
, connoisseurs of French fiction, and all short story enthusiasts,
Paris Metro Tales
offers rare glimpses of the darker side of the "City of Light."