A Conversation with the author of A TOWN LIKE PARIS Bryce Corbett

Some guys have all the luck-young and single in Paris and then meeting the stunning, statuesque, Shay, a Lido dancer from Brisbane whom he managed to sell the idea of marrying him and making babies together.

Here’s a heads-up from a conversation at the Café des Phares-full disclosure at Le Select on April 21.

TG: When did you first go come to Paris?

BC: I first came to Paris as a 24 year-old backpacker, picking my way across Europe from one grotty hostel to another. I had studied French at school and university, and had always been fascinated with Paris and France. I remember vividly that first trip to Paris. The smell of the place, the way people carried themselves, the history and culture crammed into every square inch of the place. I knew then and there that I would one day come to live in Paris. As I say in the book, the city is a harlot – she takes you in and seduces you with her well-worn charms.

TG: When and why did you come back to stay?

BC: I came back to Paris at the start of 2000. It was the beginning of the new millennium and I was in need of a fresh start in life. I had moved from my hometown, Sydney to live and work in London. I was following a well-trodden path of Australians trooping to the UK for work and life experience. I was also attempting to bolster a flagging nine-year relationship with a high-school sweetheart. The relationship fell apart, I was stuck in London, I needed to get away, so I headed across the Channel. I didn’t know a soul in Paris, I didn’t have a place to live - I just knew I needed a change of scenery. Paris beckoned.

TG: Why did you select the Marais as your first home in Paris?

BC: I figured that if I was going to live in Paris, I wanted to live in the sweaty, heaving heart of the city. I was a young man, recently single, looking to suck some marrow out of life. The criteria for my Parisian neighbourhood therefore had more to do with the number of bars and cafes per square foot than whether there was a park nearby or it was well serviced by transport. The Marais seemed like a natural choice. The Marais was – and still is – a little pocket of gentrified bohemia in Paris. It had gays, Jews, old folk and young professionals living cheek by jowl. And there was always – but always – a bar open somewhere within a 50 metre radius of my front door.

TG: Where do you live (arrondissement) now?

BC: My life now is considerably calmer than when I first arrived in Paris. I now live in the 11th arrondissement – a place called Oberkampf – with my wife, Shay. She is a fellow Aussie. We met here in Paris. Yes, I know. It’s a long way to come to meet someone from your homeland. One of the central stories in the book is my search for love in Paris. I fumble my way through various disastrous encounters with the local women before finally deciding they are a species that I, a simple lad from Australia, will never understand. Then I meet Shay, and discover that what I was looking for was a lot closer to home than I ever imagined. The fact that Shay is a Paris showgirl , one of the principal dancers at the Lido de Paris cabaret on the Champs Elysées, is very much a fringe benefit.

The latter part of the book is dedicated to my initially disastrous attempts to woo her. It also documents my entrée in the surreal world of Paris cabaret. When finally I managed to convince Shay to take a chance on dating me, I was afforded a peek behind the curtain of the Lido de Paris – and the Moulin Rouge, where many of her friends dance. I was suddenly thrust into a bizarre world of sequins and feathers and long-legged, high kicking dancers. I was also exposed to a side of Paris that I never knew existed, and one which I am sure will be a revelation to those who read the book.

TG: Why did you choose the 11th arrondissement to live?

BC: I think we both wanted to experience Paris from a more gritty perspective. I had been living in the Marais, which was wonderful. But it’s all a bit sanitized. Each day you step out your door, you feel like you are stepping onto a film set, as if you are a part of some elaborate period drama. It’s picture postcard Paris. And for five years, that was wonderful. But I also wanted my Paris experience to take in a part of the city that was perhaps a little less gentrified.

The 11th and 10th arrondissements are very popular with what the Parisians call “les bobos” – the bohemian bourgeois. It’s an area packed with artists and young families, migrants, old folk and young professionals. It is an area with much more of an edge than the Marais.

The street we live on is a market street – which is wonderful. To stroll the boulevard on market day, weaving between the fishmongers and cheese merchants and fresh fruit stalls is one of my weekly delights. It also helps that the 11th arrondissement is packed with fantastic restaurants and bars. And that our apartment, on the sixth floor, looks out across the city. To sit in our bedroom and watch the Eiffel Tower light up each night is truly special.

TG: What’s your favorite café?

BC: Chez Prune, on the Canal St Martin. It has none of the charm of your prototypical Parisian café. It has neither wicker chairs nor waiters in aprons and bow ties. It is as far off the well-trodden tourist track as it is possible to find in Paris – and it is packed with real life Parisians. Not the kind that look like they have stepped straight out of a Paris picture postcard, but your average Parisian – people who live and work in the quartier and use the café as a kind of living room.

It’s great for people watching. There’s no better way to spend a sunny Saturday afternoon than sit on the terrasse at Prune, sip coffees and watch the passing parade of Parisians.

TG: What’s your favorite wine?

BC: I don’t have any one single favourite wine. One of the great joys of living in France is the enormous variety of wines on offer. You could live here your entire life, drink a bottle of wine every night and still not taste every drop from every vineyard in France.

Right now, I am quite partial to a Cote Chalonnaise – it’s a delicious wine from the south of Burgundy. There’s a well-balanced pinot that currently makes for some delightful drinking.

TG: What do you drink when just kicking back at home?

BC:  I receive care packages from home, and there are almost always a couple of bottles of excellent Australian wine.  A vineyard that I discovered recently is Thompson Estate – from the Margaret River in Western Australian. They produce a merlot that is fantastic.

TG: What’s your favorite starred restaurant?

BC: I’m not sure I have ever eaten in a starred restaurant. Paris has so many wonderful restaurants, I find there’s no need to fork out a fortune just so that you can say you’ve eaten in a starred restaurant. Besides, whenever I look at the menus of these starred-restaurants, I find it difficult to get excited about the prospect of eating “foam” and “reductions” and “jus”.

I don’t see the point in paying a week’s rent for the kind of meal that will have me seeking out a late-night crepe from a street vendor once it’s over. Give me a hearty meal in a bustling Paris brasserie any day.

TG: What’s your favorite bistro du coin?

BC:There’s a fantastic, buzzy little bistro not far from where we live called Chez Janou. It’s always packed and the food is always good.  The mousse au chocolat has to be seen to be believed.

TG:What’s your favorite very late night spot?

BC: When it’s 2am and I’m hankering for un bon entrecote with Roquefort sauce, there’s only place to go - Le Tambour. It’s a noisy, sweaty, badly lit all-night bistro in Montorgueil which attracts the all flotsam and jetsam washed up at the end of your average Paris night on the town.

TG: What’s your favorite market?

BC: The market at the end our street, on Boulevard Richard Lenoir, would have to be my favourite. The markets are on Tuesdays and Fridays, meaning the crowd is a local one – and usually comprised almost exclusively of elderly ladies from my quartier.

I love to stand in line with them and watch as they examine every piece of fruit, check the texture and colour of every fillet of fish they are proferred and deliberate for what seems like an eternity over every cut of cheese.

The mid-week markets attract a much smaller crowd and have a much more leisurely pace than the weekend markets, which can sometimes be overwhelmingly frantic.

TG: What’s your favorite park or garden?

BC: Palais Royal in the first arrondissement is without a doubt my favourite Parisian park. Tucked away behind the Comédie Francaise theatre and hidden from view, there is something of the secret garden about the Palais Royal.

A carefully tended rose garden, symmetrical lines of uniformly cropped trees and a delightful pond and fountain ensure Palais Royal has all the requisite Paris garden attractions. But it’s the beautiful, vaulted-ceiling arcades that form the perimeter of the garden, and the boutique designer stores, antique vendors and cafes that line the square that really set it apart.

TG: What’s your favorite time of the year?

BC: I love the onset of spring – if only because it heralds the end of winter. I’ve been in Europe for ten years, but I am an Australian at heart – meaning I find European winters incredibly long, dark and cold.

The first hint of spring, the first burst of sustained sunshine makes my Antipodean heart soar. I also love August in Paris. Parisians desert the place en masse, and the city is empty. There’s no traffic, no queues at the bakery, never a problem getting a table at your favourite restaurant.

TG: How has Paris affected your work?

BC: It’s impossible to be in Paris and not be affected by it. The aesthetic beauty of the place never fails to take my breath away. Even after eight years in the city, I can still turn a corner and be bowled over by a vista.

Seeing the city through the eyes of an outsider has also been edifying. You’re afforded a sense of perspective that simultaneously allows you to appreciate so much that locals take for granted, as well as see the behaviour of Parisians in all its delicious absurdity.

Paris has also taught me to savour the simple things in life – and appreciate the importance of working to live, rather than living to work.

TG: How has Paris affected your life?

BC: Paris has had a fundamental impact upon my life. I arrived here eight years ago on a wing and a prayer. I didn’t know a soul and was on the run from a broken heart – determined to come to the City of Light, and like thousands of aspiring writers and artists before me, tuck into the moveable feast.

I came here on a whim, trusting that the city would take care of me, and she did. Eight years later I have a beautiful wife, a wonderful life and have realized a long-harboured desire to become a published author. None of that would have happened if I hadn’t taken a chance on Paris.

I hope you can join us at Le Select on April 21.  If you can't join us in Paris and even if you can here is a video preview