We had established an immediate and resonant connection when I booked the interview a mere 2 weeks earlier so I was not surprised that Debra answered from her Los Angeles home with the same smile and enthusiasm that accompanied my first call.

TG: What were you working on when I called?

DO: It’s a triptych. One of the characters is set in Paris, another is in a very small village in Burgundy, old, unsexy and off the beaten path and the third is in Africa (Mali.) Three different characters, three different lives that converge in an unlikely way. It’s not set-up with a typical storybook Paris. It’s not as lovely, for sure, but it is compelling.

TG: When did you first go to Paris?

DO: When I was at the university here (UCLA) and I took a year off and went to the Sorbonne. I took a class with foreign students: Americans, Germans, Italians, North Africans-found it very boring, not Paris, the Sorbonne. I came back and got a degree in French Literature and thought my French days were over until I met my French husband ten years later.

TG: Where did you meet him?

DO: I actually met him in Los Angeles. He was working on a film. They were shooting a scene in a sushi bar in Burbank-one of those awful strip malls. That’s where the fall of civilization really began. It was an unlikely kind of meeting.

TG: Describe the meet.

DO: I had a friend who was a line-producer on the film and convinced me to hangout with these French filmmakers. I was very cynical but I went along and we chatted, in French because he spoke no English. We hung out for a few weeks and he went back to France but came back to LA for his vacation. And then he worked on documentary in san Francisco and he went up to see him a lot. He was here, I went there and after awhile it gets to the point where you start to get serious and to make it happen one person has to leave his country or call it quits. My job as a freelancer was more flexible so I went over there and didn’t come back.

TG: Where did you live in Paris?

DO: The 19th.

TG: Why?

DO: It’s cheaper, it’s still central and it’s become a little bohemian beehive. There are a lot of filmmakers, documentary makers, opera singers, artists-they even have an art walk. So it was a burgeoning bohemian underclass that’s become entrenched. It made sense for him to be there. From a purely practical standpoint it made sense because they have newer apartments and newer apartments have parking. When you are a filmmaker you have lots of equipment and need tons of storage space.

I didn’t like it in the beginning but I grew to appreciate it. The 19th can be a bit of a shock because the level of urban density can be overwhelming. It’s the densest arrondissement in the entire city.

TG: And I would imagine multi-ethnic?

DO: Extraordinarily multi-ethnic. No other region in Paris the same levels of ethnicity. It’s French Ellis Island-there are Serbo-Coats, Vietnamese, Chinese, Eastern European, Hungarians, Bulgarians and they all have their own dining establishments, their delis. The Chinese "Mafia" is buying up old mom & pop shops and putting in their fast food dives-some are charming, some are not, There are a lot of Africans, both from North Africa and the middle. There is the largest concentration of Hasidic Jews outside of Israel and New York. The Jews and the Arabs cohabitate as "fréres-enemies."

TG: Brothers-enemies! The French have these wonderful oxy-morons like jolie-laide (pretty-ugly.)

DO: Only the French can do it-where contradictions can co-exist.

I assume you read Adam Gopnik’s book (Paris to the Moon.) It might be applicable. There was an interesting review in Harper’s Bazaar by Christina Nehring. It was the first really critical review of Paris to the Moon. The real Paris, the burgeoning new Paris is not the Ritz Hotel. She talks about the mélange in the new Paris and it’s overwhelming. If you want a nice relaxed stroll you don’t go to Belleville.

TG: When you were did you have a favorite café?

DO: It’s a regular, unassuming café called Chez Camille on the rue des Francs-Bourgeois in the Marais. From our metro station to the Marais was five minutes and I spent a lot of time in the Marais. I’m a creature of habit and I’d go there all of the time.

TG: Was there a bistro coin that you liked?

DO: Café Zephyr. It’s in the 19th at Metro Jourdain. It’s definitely the neighborhood haunt for the people who live at the top part of Belleville.

TG: And what do they serve?

DO: Classic "frenchy" food with strange little nouvelle twists. The only problem is the smoke. I used to smoke but you walk out and you’re just impregnated.

TG: Where do you go to celebrate?

DO: Most of the celebrations took place in people’s homes. It’s an American thing to celebrate in restaurants. Perhaps because of the fact that I lived in Paris I didn’t go to the 3 stars to celebrate. I have the memory of celebrating a friend’s birthday. We went to this incredible little atelier on the rue L‘astrolabe and we had truffles sliced very thinly and served on nicely toasted Poilane bread with very salted butter and an incredible wine and that was it, just amazing-these truffles probably cost $800.

TG: Do you have a favorite market?

DO: I love our little open market. I’ve been to the one on the rue Mouftard and some of the other famous ones but our little one is in a funky part of Paris on the Place des Fetes-you don’t want to go there at three in the morning but the market is stupendous. It rivals any of the great open markets in Paris.

TG: Is it reflective of the neighborhood-lots of ethnic foods?

DO: Oh no. The Africans and the Asians all have their own little boutiques but the market is a French enterprise with farmers and bakers. In fact, it’s strange one of the bakeries in our neighborhood won a national bread award for the best baguette. It’s called Cent-quarante- (140) Patisserie-it’s the shop number. Any time you go the line is around the block, even in the rain-for something you are going to consume in thirty seconds.

TG: What is your house wine?

DO: It changes all the time. Invariably red-a Cotes-du-Rhone or if we were feeling really happy, a Pomerol. I drank a lot of kir. That was my cocktail.

TG: What’s your favorite time of year in Paris?

DO: Spring or early fall.

TG: Why?

DO: Spring because you finally feel this sense of coming out of your cocoon, coming out of the darkness. There is that sense of light at the end of the tunnel and there is a sense of acute appreciation for things that in California you don’t even notice anymore: a flower blooming, the warmth of the sun on your face-everything becomes acutely lovely. There is that sense of being born again. And then fall because summer is ghastly and fall has all of the beautiful changes plus it’s strangely sultry. There are days of Indian summer that are very odd. Of course they quickly disappear but it’s a wonderful time.

TG: Do you have a favorite garden or park?

DO: I keep coming back to where we live. I have to say this is another major undiscovered jewel. It’s the Butte-Chaumont. All of my friends on the Left bank say: ah yes, the Butte-Chaumont. I used to go there when I was four. It’s gorgeous. I think it’s even bigger than the Luxembourg. I think it’s the biggest green space in the city. It’s on a hill. Where we live in the 19th used to be a suburb-nothing but windmills and quarries. Edith Piaf was born there. The Butte-Chaumont used to be an amusement park, it actually was a gallows and then it became an amusement park and there are still vestiges of this amusement park: little fake grottos with waterfalls inside and a beautiful little fake lake with boats and swans and a foot bridge. It’s just gorgeous. It’s very hilly and it’s a dog place. It’s one of the few places where people are allowed to let their dogs run without a leash–it’s actually not true and you’ll see these little guys from La Mairie (Mayor’s Office) walking around in their little blue suits blowing their whistles and shouting: Stop it! Stop it! (assume the Hollywood version of a French accent.) And, of course no one pays any attention.

TG: How did you try to stay linked to America?

DO: In the beginning they used to broadcast Dan Rather and I remember watching him and from afar he looked very bizarre-kind of like a crash-test dummy. He was a weird spokesman for America from afar. I would get the International Herald Tribune and I’d talk to people on the phone regularly. Although, there was a network of American mothers called MESSAGE. It was started by an American expat mom who wanted to find other Anglo-Saxon expat mothers in Paris to commiserate with. It’s really tough for an American to be a mom in Paris because you have none of the conveniences you have in America. So she started this network and when I left Paris three years ago there were a few thousand members. They have a newsletter and have meetings in every arrondissement.

TG: Did you make a big deal out of Thanksgiving?

DO: I only did it once because I did it for French people and they didn’t really get it. It’s just not the same. It was a lot of work and I prefer eating French food.

TG: Do you have favorite museum?

DO: I love the Picasso. They’re all incredible in their own right. There are also some unusual museums. Just before I left I discovered the Museum of the Lock.

TG: How has Paris affected your work?

DO: It’s a big source of content for me. I wrote about being an expat for Salon magazine when I was there. I write about France when I’m here. It’s an infinite source of inspiration.

TG: Apart form that is here some way that being in France affected your actual writing, your daily methodology? Do you know think about things in a different way?

DO: No, not really but when I was there I had small children so it affects everything you do. I don’t think that it has affected my style. In terms of writing I’m still more influenced by American and British writers than French writers.

TG: Who were those influences?

DO: I don’t have anyone that I hunker over. I just finished reading Jonathan Frantzen’s "The Corrections" and "Three Junes" by Julia Glass. I like a lot of modern contemporary writers. MFK Fisher, Ian McEwan. Maybe there is something about being wired in English. You read your own language.

TG: Final question. How has Paris affected your life?

DO: I don’t know where to begin. I married a Frenchman. I lived there for ten years and my whole consciousness shifted. It’s displaced me in some strange way. Now that I’ve lived there I don’t really feel home anywhere. I’m not completely at home in America even though I’m an American, I feel slightly French and in France I’m an American. It’s given me a completely different perspective of the world and sense of a much more critical awareness of everything: politics, art and social relations. It’s made me cynical in a healthy way. It’s informed me on many levels. And being married to a French guy, there’s never a dull moment. Any marital dispute comes down to I am French and you my dear are American... and therein lies the problem. I’ll add one thing. I think that the way I’m raising or trying to raise my children has definitely been influenced by the French way.

TG: How is that different?

DO: I’m very cynical about the overabundance of things for children in America. Parents are too permissive with their children and tend to live through their children in ways that are somewhat unhealthy. There is also a competitive edge to parents through their children. There aren’t enough boundaries. I’m not here to criticize American parenthood but I will say that the French approach is healthier and I’m acutely aware of it because I had my two children there and raised them there so I see it on many levels. If I do a second non-fiction book I’d love to explore the cultural dynamics of parenting and childhood.

SAVE THE DATE MONDAY JULY 12, 2004--Debra will be my guest when PTEE celebrates the paperback publication of "Entre Nous" with a reception in San Francisco.