The Paris Hours

"Like All the Light We Cannot See, The Paris Hours explores the brutality of war and its lingering effects with cinematic intensity. The ending will leave you breathless." --Christina Baker Kline, author of Orphan Train and A Piece of the World

One day in the City of Light. One night in search of lost time.

Paris between the wars teems with artists, writers, and musicians, a glittering crucible of genius. But amidst the dazzling creativity of the city's most famous citizens, four regular people are each searching for something they've lost.

Camille was the maid of Marcel Proust, and she has a secret: when she was asked to burn her employer's notebooks, she saved one for herself. Now she is desperate to find it before her betrayal is revealed. Souren, an Armenian refugee, performs puppet shows for children that are nothing like the fairy tales they expect. Lovesick artist Guillaume is down on his luck and running from a debt he cannot repay--but when Gertrude Stein walks into his studio, he wonders if this is the day everything could change. And Jean-Paul is a journalist who tells other people's stories, because his own is too painful to tell. When the quartet's paths finally cross in an unforgettable climax, each discovers if they will find what they are looking for.

Told over the course of a single day in 1927, Alex George's The Paris Hours takes four ordinary people whose stories, told together, are as extraordinary as the glorious city they inhabit.

Author: Alex George
Publisher: Flatiron Books
Published: 05/05/2020
Pages: 272
Binding Type: Hardcover
Weight: 0.95lbs
Size: 8.90h x 6.50w x 1.10d
ISBN: 9781250307187

Review Citation(s):
Publishers Weekly 03/30/2020
Library Journal 05/01/2020 pg. 110
Booklist 04/15/2020 pg. 22
Kirkus Reviews 05/01/2020
Shelf Awareness 05/12/2020

About the Author

A native of England, Alex George read law at Oxford University and worked for eight years as a corporate lawyer in London and Paris. He has lived in the Midwest of the United States for the last sixteen years. He is the founder and director of the Unbound Book Festival, and is the owner of Skylark Bookshop, an independent bookstore in downtown Columbia, Missouri.

Alex is the author of The Paris Hours, A Good American, and Setting Free the Kites.