Paris Still Life by Rosalind Brackenbury: book review

Paris Still Life (2018) is set in Paris in contemporary times and London in the 1960s.

Forty-year-old Englishwoman Gaby Greenwood, has just separated from her American husband Matt, and is grieving the death of both parents; her mother Helen and her art dealer father Peter. She arrives in Paris, alone, where her 65-year-old father used to live. She learns that he led a secretive life with another woman.

Returning to 1960s London, Gaby retraces her father’s life from the time he met her mother. They had bought their Paris apartment in about 1980. Walking around Paris, she seems to see her father everywhere: a white-haired man in a black corduroy jacket.

Gaby receives a letter from her father’s mysterious lover of 30 years – Francoise Lussac. They meet each other. Francoise is ‘about sixty, rather beautiful.’ She has a gift from Peter, Gaby’s father; a valuable 17th century still life painting. Was it real or was it a fake?

Gaby judges Francoise harshly – how could she love someone else’s husband? What did her mother Helen know? Did Francoise meet her father in his Paris apartment – the one Gaby is now living in? When Gaby has a French lover, Yves, she questions her own double standards. Should she return to her husband Matt or stay in Paris with Yves?

Running through the novel are themes of secrets, lies, pretense, hypocrisy, double standards, uncertainty, expectations, reality, illusion, and father-daughter/father-lover relationships. There is nothing gripping nor suspenseful about the plot, the characters are lightweight, and the dialogue is stilted. Overall, it is a rather disappointing book.

MARTINA NICOLLSis an international aid and development consultant, and the authorof:- Similar But Different in the Animal Kingdom(2017), The Shortness of Life: A Mongolian Lament (2015), Liberia’s Deadest Ends (2012), Bardot’s Comet (2011), Kashmir on a Knife-Edge (2010) and The Sudan Curse (2009).

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