Mme Proust and the Kosher Kitchen - Softcover

Taylor, Kate

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0385658354 ISBN 13: 9780385658355

Publisher: Doubleday Canada, Limited, 2003

Synopsis

Stretching between turn-of-the-century Paris and contemporary Canada, Mme Proust and the Kosher Kitchen is the story of three women whose lives intersect across time to reveal the intrinsic bonds of our collective and personal histories. It is a rich and compassionate debut, a novel that encourages us to explore the depths of love and memory, of life and of art. Unable to escape the pain of her unrequited love for Max Segal, Marie Prvost travels to Paris in order to study the writing of her other great amour: the novelist Marcel Proust. Marie is bilingual and works as a simultaneous translator in Montreal, and believes that reading Proust's original papers will give her insights into love and loss that just may mend her broken heart. But when Marie arrives in Paris, Marcel remains as elusive as Max: the strict officials at the Bibliotque Nationale only allow her access to the peripheral papers of File 263 -- a much ignored and poorly catalogued collection of the diaries kept by Jeanne Proust, Marcel's mother. Despite the head librarian's opinion that they contain only the "natterings of a housewife," Marie begins to translate them, and discovers that Jean Proust's diary is as illuminating for what is not said as what is there. Entwined with Marie's story are the diary entries that she has translated: Jeanne Proust's records of day-to-day life in her Paris household, which make up the second strand of this novel. Jeanne's diary includes all aspects of life at 9 Boulevard Malesherbes, everything from the difficulties of cutting rich desserts from the dinner menu to the latest Parisian headlines to her fears for the health and literary ambitions of Marcel. She's a worrier, Madame Proust, but also ferociously protective and supportive of her frail son, and the trials of her small world come across as powerfully as the goings-on outside her doors

About this title

About the Author:

Kate Taylor is a Toronto writer and cultural journalist, born in France and raised in Ottowa. She has been a theatre critic at The Globe and Mail, winning awards for her reviews and has also contributed to Canadian Art, Applied Arts and The Arts Today on CBC Radio. In 1989 she published Painters, a biography of Canadian artists written for children. She is currently an arts columnist for The Globe and Mail.

Review:

"Taylor's meticulously crafted novel is an impressive debut" * Daily Mail * "Tenderness and subtlety: it is an ambitious project by a promising writer" * Times Literary Supplement * "The parallel portraits of old and new worlds are vividly atmospheric...contains a lot to admire" * Sunday Telegraph *

About this edition

• Publisher: Doubleday Canada, Limited
• Publication date: 2003
• ISBN 10: 0385658354
• ISBN 13: 9780385658355
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 478