Perestroika in Paris, by Jane Smiley (Knopf, 288 pages)
My daughter asked what I was reading this week, and I struggled to explain. “It’s a novel about a racehorse who escapes from her stall” — eyebrows raised — “and wanders around Paris” — slight smirk — “and becomes friends with other animals.”
By this point, my daughter’s face could’ve been an all-out meme, the expression people post on Twitter when they hear something utterly ridiculous. And I hadn’t even gotten to the part where the animals befriend a young boy.
But hear me out. It would also be difficult to describe Animal Farm and Charlotte’s Web to people who haven’t read them without eliciting the same reaction. Jane Smiley’s Perestroika in Paris may not rise to that level of classic, but Perestroika, the racehorse who goes by Para, is as charming as Wilbur the pig and as memorable as Boxer the horse. It’s a surprising and delightful diversion for the gloom of post-Christmas winter.
Para is a filly who idly pushes up against her stall one day after a race and it unexpectedly opens. Although she is well-treated and loved, she is a curious horse and takes advantage of the opportunity to explore. Before leaving, she investigates a pile of her groom’s belongings and is interested to find a leather purse. She had heard people talk of purses — in fact, she has won many and figures this was probably her own — and so she picks up the purse with her mouth and carries it with her.
The droll scene conveys two things to the reader: that Smiley has a smart and understated wit, and that she knows horses and horse racing. In fact, she’s a Pulitzer Prize winner (for the novel A Thousand Acres, published in 1991) and many of her books for young readers involve horses. But Perestroika in Paris isn’t a horse book; it’s an animal story rich with subtle commentary on the human condition.
The first of Para’s new friends is Frida, a homeless hound — or, as Smiley puts it, “free dog” — who has been on her own and lonely since her human companion died. Intrigued by the sight of a horse on its own, carrying a purse, Frida befriends Para and helps her find a place where she can sleep at night, undetected. Then comes a world-wise raven, and two ducks which Frida, though hungry, manages with Edward Cullen-style self-control not to eat. Instead, she befriends the proprietor of a local market and offers him money she pilfers from Para’s purse in exchange for a bag of bread, beans, carrots and lettuce. (She is a very smart dog, having figured out that she can get humans to do what she wants when she performs some sort of trick.)
The animals encamp for a while in the Champ de Mars, with the occasional foray into Paris when it’s dark. There is some necessary suspension of disbelief in all of this, not only for the talking animals but for the fact that they are not quickly hauled off by Animal Control. Smiley deals deftly with this problem. For example, when Para goes out on her own one morning, she encounters a kindly baker who offers her oats and sugar. “She knew so little about horses that at first it didn’t occur to her to report the animal. If a horse lived in Paris, and could stroll down the street gazing into shop windows, Anais thought, then that was the horse’s business.” And the shop owner who gives Frida food in exchange for the money she continues to bring him assumes that she’s a very smart dog who has been sent by someone who is housebound.
The commentary by the animals is refreshing and may well accurately reflect what they think. One day, Frida reflects on runners she comes across, “Running humans never looked at a thing. … Perhaps they could not do two things at once, which was why she had never seen even the fastest ones catch a pigeon.”
But the most astute observer might be the raven, Raoul, who notes “there is nothing quite as amusing as observing humans in their own habitats.” (He also later reveals that many human beings are reincarnated as avians; he suspects he was once an ineffective government official. But then again, he also believes that Christmas, for humans, is a “mass breeding ritual.”
The story builds slowly, with the animals gradually building bonds with friendly humans who do not deem it necessary to intervene in their lives. We also look in occasionally on Para’s former trainer, who has assumed the horse was stolen or is dead. The most central human, however, is Etienne, an 8-year-old orphan who lives with his great-grandmother, who has known much loss. The animals, which now include a rat, are all bonded with Etienne and come to his aid when he experiences a tragedy
In this year of Covid and closed theaters, there wasn’t a “feel-good movie of the year,” but there is a feel-good book of the year, and this is it. It’s the happy ending we’ve all been waiting for. If only Smiley could write 2021. A
BOOK NOTES
They say you can’t tell a book by its cover, but you can tell a lot by its title. Books can go through several — the author’s choice isn’t necessarily the final decision, and the publisher’s isn’t necessarily the best. In fact, book titles can change even after a book has been published, for a paperback edition or second printing.
As such, it’s a pleasure to come across book titles that are so punchy, so perfect, that they make you want to read the book. Here are some of the best titles of 2020, a year that for some people has been one of the worst.
Block, Paper, Chisels by Kim Cunningham (Bauhan Publishing, 128 pages) — A collection of images depicting nature in the Monadnock region of New Hampshire, with information on the artist’s influences and techniques, plus some haiku.
Hell and Other Destinations: A 21st Century Memoir, by Madeleine Albright (Harper, 384 pages) — Recollections of the former secretary of state, the first woman to hold the office in the U.S.
You Never Forget Your First: A Biography of George Washington, by Alexis Coe (Viking, 304 pages) — Described by The New York Times as a “historiographical intervention in the form of a sometimes cheeky presidential biography.”
Good Morning, Monster, by Catherine Gildiner (St. Martin’s, 368 pages) — The subtitle, “A therapist shares five stories of emotional recovery,” isn’t nearly as catchy, but with the type set atop a fried egg, it’s a world-class cover.
Pappyland: A Story of Family, Fine Bourbon and the Things That Last, by Wright Thompson (Penguin, 256 pages) — You don’t have to drink bourbon to be seduced by the title of this look at the family business whose motto is “We make fine bourbon at a profit if we can, at a loss if we must.”
Books
Author events
• KJ DELL’ANTONIA Author presents The Chicken Sisters. Hosted by Gibson’s Bookstore in Concord. Online, via Zoom. Wed., Jan. 6, 7 p.m. Registration required. Visit gibsonsbookstore.com or call 224-0562.
• SUSAN CONLEY Author presents Landslide. Hosted by Gibson’s Bookstore in Concord. Online, via Zoom. Thurs., Feb. 11, 7 p.m. Registration required. Visit gibsonsbookstore.com or call 224-0562.
• THERESA CAPUTO the star of TLC’s Long Island Medium will present “Theresa Caputo: The Experience Live” at the Capitol Center for the Arts (44 S. Main St. Concord, ccanh.com) on Wed., April 7, 7:30 p.m. Tickets start at $39.75 (with option for a VIP Photo Op for an additional $49.95).
Book Clubs
• BOOKERY Online. Monthly. Third Thursday, 6 p.m. Bookstore based in Manchester. Visit bookerymht.com/online-book-club or call 836-6600.
• GIBSON’S BOOKSTORE Online, via Zoom. Monthly. First Monday, 5:30 p.m. Bookstore based in Concord. Visit gibsonsbookstore.com/gibsons-book-club-2020-2021 or call 224-0562.
• TO SHARE BREWING CO. 720 Union St., Manchester. Monthly. Second Thursday, 6 p.m. RSVP required. Visit tosharebrewing.com or call 836-6947.
Writing
• POSTCARD POETRY CONTEST Peterborough Poetry Project seeks submissions of original poems written on picture postcards for an upcoming anthology. Deadline is Dec. 31. Visit peterboroughpoetryproject.org/contests for more information.
• CALL FOR BLACK WRITERS New Hampshire-based theater company and playwright collective New World Theatre announces an open call to Black writers to submit monologues that reflect their personal experience of living while black, to be published in an anthology titled “08:46.” The deadline for submissions is Jan. 1, 2021. Visit newworldtheatre.org/08m46s.