13, rue Thérèse

December 13, 2010
Shapiro's debut, an imaginative, sensual rendering of a Parisian woman's life, is told through the voice of Trevor Stratton, a young American scholar and translator working at a university in Paris. Stratton finds a box filled with objects dating back to WWI that once belonged to Louise Brunet, and his fascination with the box's contents—postcards, handkerchiefs, love letters, and other vintage keepsakes—leads him to imagine what Brunet's life in Paris might have been. What Stratton isn't aware of at first is that the box was left for him by Josianne, a secretary at the university, who is using the box and its contents to measure Stratton's romantic worthiness. As Stratton unfolds Brunet's story against the background of WWI battlefields and several inventions—a lover, Camille Victor, who dies in battle; a resulting unhappy marriage to husband Henri; and a passionate affair with a married neighbor, Xavier Langlais—he gradually comes to realize that Josianne is the source of his archival inspiration. The book is illustrated with photos of the actual objects owned by Shapiro, cleverly used as the novel's framing device.

November 15, 2010

An American in Paris, Trevor Stratton settles into his new office and discovers a box containing various historical and personal items in the bottom drawer of his filing cabinet. As he examines each article, he's thrown back in time to the life of Louise Brunet, owner of these artifacts. In particular, letters and postcards from World War I tie Louise to other characters in the novel: Camille, the cousin with whom she is in love; Garance, her young piano student; her husband, Henri; and Xavier Langlais, a new neighbor in her apartment building, with whom she has a steamy affair. As the novel progresses, Trevor finds that he is falling in love with Josianne, the quiet secretary who placed the mysterious box in his filing cabinet, setting the whole mystery afoot. VERDICT Inspired by the woman who lived above the Paris apartment where she was born and raised, Shapiro has written a debut novel reminiscent of Nick Bantock's fantastic Griffin and Sabine novels, which also use postcards to build a great romance. This wonderfully pieced together bit of time travel, history, and especially many types of love would be an excellent choice for a women's reading group.--Lisa Rohrbaugh, National Coll. Lib., Youngstown, OH

Copyright 2010 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

January 1, 2011
This ambitious first novel from Paris-born Shapiro centers on a box of WWI-era artifacts, depicted in color throughout the book, found by American academic in Paris Trevor Stratton (it was purposefully left for him by his mysterious new secretary). From photographs and miscellaneous objects, Stratton pieces together a record of the life of their owner, Madame Louise Bruneta real person, incidentally, who lived in the Paris apartment above Shapiros, and whose mysterious, unclaimed belongings Shapiro really owns. At turns truly exciting and overflowing with imagination, the novel is full of intriguing characters: Louises boring husband, Henri; her talented young piano student, Garance; and her new neighbor, Xavier, to whom she is magnetically drawn. This gimmicky tale unravels somewhat when Stratton, apparently in a fever-dream, begins to confuse his life with Louises and implicates himself in the history in which hes become so involved. Puzzle-lovers will be curious to check out the books online counterpart, in which they can view 3-D versions of the books images.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2011, American Library Association.)