Manet died a week ago today, on April 30, 1883. He was just 51 years old. I used the portrait Carolus-Duran painted of Manet at the top of this post because I like how Manet looks in it. Friend Antonin Proust described Manet as “ouverte et franche,” and I think this portrait shows that side […]
In one scene in Paris Red, Victorine thinks of all the flowers she can to pass the time as she poses for Manet. As she makes a list of posies in her mind, she also thinks about how the next day will be Sunday, the day when the bird sellers also come to the flower […]
My copy of Cara Black’s new mystery, Murder on the Champ de Mars, arrived Tuesday, and I’m thrilled. I love to tag along as Aimée Leduc navigates Paris by Vespa, investigating crimes and injustice, and I’m as much in awe of her fashion sense as her street sense. Fourteen books into this series, I feel […]
I celebrated Victorine Meurent’s birthday this past Wednesday, February 18. She was born 171 years ago, in 1844. (She died in 1927, at 83.) I know a few other people celebrated along with me because I got some favorites and retweets on Twitter, as well as some likes on Facebook. I thought it would be […]
This is another of my shabby photos from 1983, taken at the corner of rue de Seine and rue Jacques Callot. It shows the restaurant La Palette and a bit of the outside of Galerie Lara Vincy when the artist Ben (Ben Vautier) covered the outside of the gallery with colored writing for his Boîtes et […]
Kirkus just reviewed Paris Red and said some wonderful things: “Manet’s muse ponders color, power, sex and love in vibrant 1860s Paris…Gibbon writes in a rather fragmented style, with short chapters…the overall effect is lyrical and fits the shabbily gorgeous Parisian setting. Fans of art history, Paris and contemporary Künstleroman like Girl With a Pearl Earring […]
I was really thrilled by Marie Michaud’s review of Rouge Paris for Page des Librairies. She said Rouge Paris was “un roman émouvant sur l’amour, l’art et la vie, véritable plongée dans la bohème parisienne du XIXe siècle.” Click here to read the entire review. Michaud also spoke about Rouge Paris on France Bleu radio […]
Thursday, October 30, 2014 is the publication date for Rouge Paris, the French translation of Paris Red. Christian Bourgois is the publisher. Cécile Deniard translated. I received copies the other day and I went through the same thing I always do. I opened the package and slipped out the books—and then I couldn’t think. I […]
I have a secret. Ever since I received the advance copies of Paris Red last month, I’ve been carrying one with me everywhere I go. I don’t mean that I show it to everyone (though I have shared it with friends), I just mean that I always have a copy in my bag. I guess […]
My main character in Paris Red is poor. When Victorine Meurent meets Manet, she’s working as a brunisseuse, or a silver burnisher, and she has very little money to live on. She eats as cheaply as she can, buying her meals on the streets, and many days she gets by on bread and soup—soupe aux […]
Paris Red: A Novel by Maureen Gibbon 