Copyright 2023 by David Benjamin. Published by Last Kid Books, Madison WI.
Yes, I know… two Benjamin books in a row. Totally luck of the draw. I keep a list of the books in my “to be read” pile and pick from that list randomly. Just happened to get two Benjamins in a row.
This one, unlike the previous one, is a novel. Two of its characters – journalists Steve Knight and Mie Nishamura – appeared previously in Black Dragon. Two other main characters – Mireille, a waitress, and Cavendish, an author – are new. The other main characters are Cavendish’s fictional creations. I guess I should also include the numerous Paris bistros as characters as they figure prominently.
I really liked the literary structure of this book. Steve and Mie, while having a drink in Le Petit St-Benoit, a small bistro, observe the interaction between a lovely waitress (Mireille) and a sad patron (Cavendish). They are strangers but Steve and Mie love to invent stories for people they observe. Initially they invent a “dying physicist” persona for the sad guy and the waitress is merely helping him enjoy his final days. But their imaginary lives evolve. Eventually the waitress becomes “Princess Anna” who has fallen from a high royal position and is slowly regaining her foothold in humanity by waiting tables. The story, in their minds, evolves as Steve and Mie see the couple several more times in other bistros.
Meanwhile, we, the readers, are introduced to the real couple. Mireille is in love with a violent, abusive boyfriend but simply can’t pull away. Cavendish is a famous author of one great book but is two years into a literary drought. But as Cavendish learns more about Mireille’s tragic love life and her violent boyfriend, inspiration strikes and he begins a new novel about – you guessed it – a beautiful waitress with a violent, abusive boyfriend. But this story is set a hundred years earlier, in the era of the apaches – Parisian gangs. The title of his new novel is Apache Dance.
Soon the lives of the two real couples, along with the imaginary lives of the third couple as they evolve in the incipient chapters of Apache Dance, become intertwined, all while Steve and Mie visit a long list of Parisian bistros.
There is a lot of French terminology (and some Japanese terminology too) in this book, but Benjamin has helpfully provided a glossary of French terms, along with a thumbnail sketch of each of the (mostly) real bistros that appear in the book.
The intertwining of three couples, along with the delectable descriptions of the bistros and their fare, was captivating. This is a book that should be used as a textbook in a college course on how to write.
One complaint: Benjamin is not particularly adept at describing violence. Some of the violent scenes were, to me, jumbled and hard to envision. But the rest of the prose was absolutely superb. The illustrations, by his wife Junko, were also charming.
8 out of 10.
