LEFT BANK author Kate Muir speaks with Terrance Gelenter

I recently jokingly accused Diane Johnson of launching the adultery on the Left Bank literary genre with LE DIVORCE. Not a month goes by without one of them landing on my desk. I usually toss them after one chapter but Kate Muir’s LEFT BANK passes the test.

This weekly columnist for The Times (London) will delight Americans with her biting observations of life in Paris’ most fashionable neighborhood.

TG: When did you first go to Paris?
KM: I first came as a little kid on holiday from Scotland, but my real engagement with Paris (leading to love) came when I hitchhiked there in my late teens and hung out. I came to be very fond of those one-star hotels with flowered brown wallpaper, bolsters from hell and the stand-up WC on a dark twist in the stairs. I was, like many teenage girls, going through my difficult Simone de Beauvoir phase.

TG: When and why did you go back for an extended stay?
KM: I came back in 1995 to work as a correspondent for The Times of London. We had a fantastic old office overlooking the Opera - and every manif (demonstration) that inevitably came past there.

TG: Where did you live (arrondissement?)
I lived in the rue du Bac - where my book, Left Bank, is set. Sadly we did not have such a grand apartment as the one I imagined, but we did have the gardienne (concierge) from your worst nightmares.

TG: Why?
We decided to live in the 7th for all the obvious reasons: we could get emergency supplies at all times from the Bon Marché grande épicerie, we could walk to a dozen cinemas and a hundred cafes, and we were near little parks and the Jardin du Luxembourg for our sons.

TG: What's your favorite café?
KM: I like the Café de la Mairie on St Sulpice, and the joy of staring at everyone going by, generally dressed in their finest.

TG: What's your favorite wine?
KM: Gaillac Passion - a meaty, cheap red.

TG: What do you drink when just kicking back at home?
KM: Australian econo-plonk, or Italian Peroni beer. Sorry.

TG: What's your favorite starred restaurant?
KM: Helene Darroze in the 6th. I love that it's run by a woman - and her huge shaggy dog. The salon downstairs is cheaper, and has the same style food.

TG: What's your favorite bistro du coin?
KM: It was Au Babylone, by the Bon Marché, run by the matriarch Liliane and all her family. She would feed my toddlers squares of chocolate and sit them on the zinc, while we ate divine veal and mash, but I hear it's just closed. I am distraught.

TG: What's your favorite market?
The Greenmarket down Boulevard Raspail for food, and the Marché Serpette for junk.

TG: What's your favorite park or garden?
KM: Well, we spent most of our time in the Luxembourg, but the weird, slightly barren Parc Andre Citroen has great fountains for running in, and the rinky-dink charm of the Jardin d'Acclimatation still draws me.

TG: What's your favorite time of the year?
KM:  Bizarrely, it was the night I gave birth to me son, and for particularly Parisian reasons. We were living on the Rue to Bac round the corner form Matignon and half a dozen French ministries, so there were daily manifs or political demos down the street. As I went into labour, the intellectuals decided to march against the new immigration laws, and the street was sealed off to cars. My husband went down to beg permission to bring our car in from the Boulevard Raspail. "My wife is in labour," he said. "They all say that," said the policeman. So between some contractions and a few loudish yells I made my way through the angry intellectuals to the police barrier. "Oh she really is in labour," they said, letting us through.

By the time we reached the Hopital Franco-Britannique, my contractions stopped, so we went to a bar opposite and had a particularly good ham baguette. My husband had a beer. Then I went into labour. We wandered over, they delivered my son, and I awoke next morning to a bowl of perfect coffee and a buttery croissant. Then the serving lady came in again, took one look at me, and presented me with a second croissant. "I think you need this," she said. In a way that encapsulated Paris: the radical intellos; the irritating bureaucracy; the great food at all times; and the brilliant, free healthcare.

TG: How has Paris affected your work?
KM: Paris was my work for four years as a journalist, and then afterwards for a couple of years when I wrote a novel about philosophy, gastronomy and adultery (not necessarily in that order) on the Left Bank.

TG: How has Paris affected your work and life?
KM: As a writer, there's a lot to live up to in Paris. When I arrived I immersed myself in Gertrude Stein, and Janet Flanner of the New Yorker; I was reading Houellebecq and biographies of everyone from Hemingway to my fellow Scot, Alexander Trocchi. This whole experience was so humbling that I thought, what the hell, and started to write novels with a baby on my knee, at the same time as writing a weekly newspaper column. Somehow being a foreigner gives you this cartoonlike clarity about a place, plus talking in another language leads you to listen to the rhythms and nuances of your own. I fully intend to live in Paris again once my children have left school - it's a wonderful place to write, and live.