The Monuments of Paris (a quick "word vomit" review)

I was a bit worried that my "hey, that book that crossed my desk looks interesting, I will read it" strategy would finally fail when I was about halfway through The Monuments of Paris by Violaine Huisman. Huisman's book is a semi-fictional exploration of her flamboyant father, Denis Huisman, and her grandfather, Georges Huisman. I wasn't finding her family nearly interesting enough to hold my attention despite all the book's Parisian references. But then the focus switched to Violaine's grandfather and I was all in. The narrative picked up speed, as Violaine told the story of Georges' exile and underground existence during World War II. 

Georges Huisman came from humble background and rose to prominence in France's Department of Fine Arts prior to the war (and founder of the Cannes Film Festival). But as a Jew, he was forced to flee the country in a saga that could have come straight out of the movie Casablanca. But that's not all: he also carried on a relationship with his much younger mistress, Choute (Duchess Choute de Montmoreau). Huisman and Choute had met when Georges was a college professor and Choute one of his students. (Choute came into money when she married nobility and her husband died shortly after their wedding). After Georges found safe lodging for Choute in 1940 during the mad scramble to escape the Nazis, the two permanently lost contact. 

A weakness for women (sometimes women not their wives) is a common thread between Georges and his son Denis. Denis, nominally a philosopher who was actually more of a business entrepreneur, was married multiple times during his life and did not father Violaine until 1979, when he was fifty years old and married to his last wife. 

The Monuments of Paris is a sequel of sorts to Violaine's movel The Book of Mother, which was written about her troubled mother Catherine. (I have not read the book, but now feel that I should). Taken as a whole, these books, that seamlessly blend fiction and non-fiction, are Violaine's attempt to make sense of and reckon with her often messy and volatile family history. Violaine Huisman also provides fascinating insight into the early history of the Cannes Film Festival and the evil of the Nazi-complicit Vichy government and its virulent antisemitism.


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