David Downie
In Conversation With PTEE's Director Terrance Gelenter

For those of us in the Paris “business” there is only one degree of separation! When David Downie was organizing a promotional tour of America for his self-published book Paris, Paris he consulted his friends Diane Johnson and Harriet Rochefort Welty who are also my Paris pals.

A successful San Francisco event and another PTEE connection blossomed culminating in a collaborative Marais tour.

Using the internet, telephones and stolen moments during the San Francisco publicity tour I managed to collect the following…

TG: When did you first go to Paris?
DD: Back in 1976, from San Francisco. On the one hand it seems like yesterday. On the other, like another life. It was fall. I stayed for 10 days at 12, rue de l’Odeon in the mezzanine apartment that was once part of Shakespeare & Co. Little did I know that I’d wind up living in Paris, which was not “my” city, and earning a living as a writer. I thought I’d walk the straight and narrow, and was headed for law school…

TG:When and why did you come back (to stay?
DD: I rented a 7th-floor walk up maid’s room in the fall of 1985 and moved into it on April 5, 1986. I’ll never forget the date. It was snowing. “April in Paris” was playing in my head, but my chattering teeth ruined the rhythm. My garret was not heated. That would’ve been too easy. I’m still not sure exactly why I wound up here – whether it was to escape a failed marriage in Milan, where I’d been living for several years, or because I secretly wanted to live out a scene in La Boheme – and write a novel. You see, I’d been an usher at the SF Opera and had seen La Boheme a dozen times. The novel I’d started to write in Milan, but had run into various difficulties. Paris seemed like a good, cheap place to finish it. And I got stuck. I’m still here. I like to say that I’m an accidental Parisian…

TG: Where do you live (arrondissement?)
DD: In the 4th, halfway between the Place des Vosges and Saint-Paul.

TG: Why?
DD: Ask my wife, Alison. She was born in Paris and lived in our apartment before we met. Her apartment was nicer than mine, so I wound up moving in with her. Actually, I already had moved to the Marais, in January 1987, and was living behind Sainte-Marie on the Rue St-Antoine. Back in the 1980s the Marais still had some edge to it – and was a very cheap place to live. It was – and is – full of historic townhouses and pocket-sized parks, and is right in the middle of Paris. So from it you can walk everywhere. I am an inveterate walker… I was born in San Francisco and have long felt that either you live smack in the center of a city, or in the countryside. Suburbs aren’t for me.

TG: What’s your favorite café?
DD: The terrace of many cafés – a place where I can breathe. The smoke kills me. If I had to pick one, I guess it would be Le Rostand, facing the Luxembourg Gardens. Nice terrace, and a small nonsmoking section inside – and of course all the usual café trappings, including intellos et artistes striking poses. Someone always seems to be signing a book, or making a film at Le Rostand. It’s lively, very Parisian and has less historical-cultural baggage and therefore fewer gawkers than the famous cafés.

TG: What’s your favorite wine?
DD: Chambolle-Musigny for red, Condrieu or Chateau Grillet for white.

TG: What do you drink when just kicking back at home?
DD: Any of half a dozen little wines I’ve found on assignment, or discovered at my caviste’s. Could be a Gigondas or Baumes de Venise, a bio-dynamic Macon-Cruzille, a Reuilly or even a Pinot Noir “Rouge de Saint-Hyppolite” from Alsace. I’m not a Bordeaux lover, primarily because a truly excellent Bordeaux wine costs a fortune, and I can very easily live without Cabernet Sauvignon, Cabernet Franc, Merlot and so forth.

TG: What’s your favorite starred restaurant?
DD: Oh dear, I’m not a starred-restaurant person – I get tired of the dancing penguins and the self-important foodies… but le Grand Véfour at the Palais Royale is so splendid, so gorgeous, and the chef is actually a nice, talented guy – Guy Martin – and his talent and decency come through in the cooking and service. The staff are happy.

TG: What’s your favorite bistro du coin?
DD: Les Fontaines, near the Pantheon, because the food is real old-fashioned French provincial stuff, and the décor is hideous – like a late-1970s café. I made the mistake of telling several food writer colleagues about Les Fontaines some time ago. Now it’s difficult to get a table…

TG: What’s your favorite market?
DD: Le Marché d’Aligre in the 11th arrondissement. The market structure is lovely – a miniature of what the criminal idiots of the 1960s-70s destroyed at Les Halles – and the mix of ethnic and French produce is hard to beat. It’s authentic, a neighborhood market.

TG: What’s your favorite park or garden?
DD: It’s a toss up between the sophisticated 17th-century Luxembourg and the wild, weird Second Empire fantasyland of Buttes-Chaumont. But since the Butte is way out in the 19th I don’t get to it often enough. I go to the Luxembourg several times a week. Marvelous!

TG: What’s your favorite time of the year?
DD: Fall, though I also like winter. Spring is full of promise and allergens, and both usually prove irritating; summer is full of noise and heat, and I prefer to avoid both.

TG: How or do you stay connected to America?
DD: The telephone and internet are umbilical cords. I probably send and receive 500 emails a week. I talk to friends and family and editors. Once a year I get to NY and SF, though there have been times when I was too busy or too disgusted by the political situation in America to return every year. After 25 years abroad it’s a challenge to stay in touch, that’s for sure. Oh, I also read the IHT. It was better when the Washington Post was also involved, but it’s still a damn good newspaper.

TG: How do you celebrate Thanksgiving?
DD: It always seems I’m on the road, on assignment, so turkey day goes by without me noticing it. If I do get a chance, I like the authentic stuffed item, bought from our local butcher, though I also enjoy making a wonderful Italian braised turkey, which is moist and luscious.

TG: How has Paris affected your work?
DD: How has it not! Paris has become my work. I write about the city all the time. It has also been my home base for 20 years. It would take me several days to answer this question. The real danger, in my case, is that of going native. I  have a French passport but don’t feel particularly French – I am who I am. But a lot of folks seem to think I’m more European, and, specifically, more Parisian, than anything else. I’m not sure it’s a compliment. I never set out to be more Parisian than the Parisians. It scares me to think that Paris has taken over my life, my work and my personality. My agent in New York is shopping around a thriller that I wrote. It’s set in Paris. I couldn’t imagine being able to write anything like it set anywhere else. But it’s not The Da Vinci Code so in all likelihood it won’t be published. Editors keep saying “it’s too French…”

TG: How has Paris affected your life?
DD: I guess I’ve already answered this. Without wanting to sound goggle-eyed, I would say Paris – and Rome, where I’ve also been lucky enough to live – have taught me to look, listen, sniff the air, feel the surfaces – then try to get the 6th sense working. Paris is a city that reveals itself one day at a time, like a talented strip-tease artist. Sometimes I think I know the place fairly well. The next moment I realize I’m a neophyte and will never know Paris or the Parisians. It’s humbling. And that’s good.

For a perspective on David’s view of Paris read John Baxter’s review of PARIS, PARIS: JOURNEY INTO THE CITY OF LIGHT and of course read the book