By Joanne and Gerry Dryansky
Review by John Baxter

As usual at the beginning of the French summer, Paris is filling up with visitors. While most come simply for pleasure, an increasing number are wannabee writers and artists, hoping that the spirits of Renoir, Debussy or Proust will permeate and inspire them as they did Cassatt, Stravinsky and Beckett. From the conviction that simply being in Paris is a stimulus and an inspiration, it's a small step to believing that the outsider can also help ginger the French out of their complacency and neutralise some of the national xenophobia. Superficially, the French seem to welcome such interest, since their literature is dotted with characters like Balzac's Eugène de Rastignac of Le Pere Goriot and Emile Zola's Octave Mouret of Pot-Bouille and Au Bonheur des Dames: pushy but charming young provincials who arrive in Paris with nothing but ambition and some regrettable luggage, and speedily make themselves both indispensable and rich.

Frequently these days, the fictional newcomer is a woman - in this case Fatima, a Tunisian chambermaid imported from the sland of Djerba to replace her sister as servant of the testy Countess Poulais du Roc. After some setbacks, the fumbling and, initially, illiterate young Fatima resourcefully insinuates herself into the society of her quartier. She befriends Hippolyte, the lonely desk clerk of a local hot-sheet hotel, and a number of fellow expatriates, including Carmen, the building's aggrieved Spanish concierge, the omnicompetent Victorine, Senegalese chatelaine of a high-powered lawyer, and Hadley Hadley III, an American remittance an living in a maid's room under the roof.

Hadley teaches Fatima to read, and Victorine introduces her to Paris's black quartier, the Goutte d'Or, so that the somewhat surprised Countess finds her Labrador's constipation cured with a concoction from a Algerian herbalist and central heating installed in her chateau by an African. Fatima is a first cousin to Amelie of Jean-Pierre Jeunet's Fabuleux Destin d'Amelie Poulain and Vianne Rocher, the chocolatier of Joanne Harris's novel Chocolat (and Lasse Hallstrom film). All three sweep into stuffy communities, blowing away the cobwebs and fanning the flames under failing relationships. But, like most such books and films, this one ends with the arriviste transformed and absorbed; if the French can't win, they'd rather not play.

Fatima's rise (or fall?) from hapless emigrant to wealthy bourgeoise is amusingly and sensually described. The Dryanskys display an enviable flair for evoking the pleasures of French markets, cafes, parks and boulevards, particularly in August's heat, and anatomize the society of a Parisian café and of an old-fashioned apartment house with anthropological zeal. The writing is as juicy as the ripe watermelon that appears on the cover, and if Fatima's Good Fortune doesn't have the astringency of a Diane Johnson or Mavis Gallant, that's no great sin in such a seductive summer read.

To purchase Fatima's Good Fortune, go to www.booksite.com.