TG: When did you come back to stay?
DJ: Only six years ago but my husband and I had two different sabbatical years in Paris in the 80's. He is a professor of medicine and works with a French outfit on tuberculosis and AIDS in Africa.

TG: So you fell in love with Paris and had to stay?
DJ: Actually it was John who fell in love with Paris. He wasn't with me on that Volkswagen run. He had also visited Paris a few years before we were married and had this wonderful memory of Paris. So that when he began to get French fellows studying with him in San Francisco, he began to see the possibility of going to France and working in some kind of French medical facility. So it was really John who set up this French life.

TG: How do you divide your time between San Francisco and Paris?
DJ: We're here eight months but it keeps stretching. We keep staying longer in Paris. We go back at the end of April for the summer months and we go up to Tahoe.

TG: Where do you live in Paris?
DJ: The sixieme, just about five minutes from here.

TG: Why did you choose the sixieme? We fell in love with our apartment. We had been looking in the fifth and our agent suggested that we look at this apartment and that was it.

TG: Do you rent or own?
DJ: We own. Luckily for us we bought a teeny, closet sized apartment in 1982. Actually my mother bought it for my brother and me. Over the years we parlayed that up to our present sized apartment.

TG: That seems to be the pattern here. You start with an atelier and four apartments later you have a palace.
DJ: That's right. So we've had four French apartments of which this is the ultimate. I don't think we'll move from this one -it suits us very well.

TG: What is about the sixth that's so appealing to you.
DJ: The sixth is the center of everything, as we sit here looking at the church of Saint Germain and La Hune, the (French) bookshop is just around the corner.

TG: Do you read French?
DJ: I do, but not without screaming.

TG: Dictionary at your side?
DJ: No. I try not to look up words in the dictionary because that really turns you off reading. I just try like a child does-words in their context. And it works as a strategy because later you find that you remember that word.

TG: What's your favorite café or are we in it?
DJ: I certainly come here. I often go to the Flore and I also go there (pointing at the Café Bonaparte to our left).

TG: What are the moods that draw you to these different places?
DJ: If I have a guest I'll bring them here because it's so beautiful to look out. And it's a little less crowded than the Flore, a little less français. If it's really a crowded tourist moment here I go the Bonaparte. Also it's next to the movie so you can buy your ticket and go and have a coffee.

TG: One is generally a magoiste or a floriste-rarely both. Why The Flore?
DJ: Parisians seem to be floristes, so when they say let's meet for a coffee they usually mean at The Flore.

TG: What's your favorite market?
DJ: The Place Maubert where I used to live. In one of my books, Le Divorce, the characters live just where I used to live, just off the Place Maubert in the fifth. And that little market comes three times a week- Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday. And that was why I wanted to live in the fifth.

TG: Do you have a favorite park or garden?
DJ: I guess the Luxembourg, like everyone. But there's a tiny park around here, that if I have a grandchild with me I like to visit-that one over there (next to L'Église Saint Germain). There's always a lot of drunks in it but until recently there was a Picasso bust which was stolen a few months ago, in the night, much to the horror of the whole quartier. I just read in the last bulletin that came out from the mayor of the sixieme that it's been found.

TG: You mentioned earlier that you had first come in the winter. Do you have a favorite time of year in Paris?
DJ: I like the winter. I like cold weather. I was raised in a cold climate (Moline, Illinois). I guess you get habituated to a certain climate as a child. And also it's not so crowded.

TG: This is a two-part question. Do you have a favorite bistro coin, a place where you go for a blanquette de veau and where do you go for something very special. So beginning with that Wednesday night when you and your husband want to eat in the neighborhood where do you go?
DJ: That's a problem around here. We debate endlessly. We haven't found that perfect little blanquette de veau place. But there's a rather good restaurant on the Rue Dauphine: Le Relais des Beaux-Arts and another called the Bistro des Beaux-Arts. They're classic cuisine grandmère. Otherwise, they come and they go. I go to Armani a lot. Armani has the best food in the quartier, if you like Italian food.

TG: What's your favorite dish?
DJ: I have an arugula salad with parmesan and a risotto. Seriously cooked, expensive-but very, very nice.

TG: When you are celebrating the advance on your next book where do you go to celebrate?
DJ: We change around a lot. We go to different 3 stars. You can't really become an habitue of them anyway. We had a wonderful dinner last year at Alain Ducasse and suddenly it's not there anymore. It was the old Joel Robuchon location. The other night we went to Prunier, the old restaurant (one of Hemingway's favorites)- it's now called Goumard. Perfect fish.

TG: What type of experience are you looking for in those 3 star restaurants?
DJ: Just everything being perfect of its kind. And in addition we expect the service to be correct but agreeable, which is not always the case with 3 star restaurants. Everyone that I've talked to who has gone to the Tour D'Argent lately has said that they'll never go back because the service was so condescending and irritating. Something that puts me off too is when they insist on speaking English. Or give you menus in English that are so badly translated that you can't tell what the food is.

TG: When you and John are just kicking back and looking at the sunset what kind of wine are you drinking?
DJ: Our house plonk? We order a red Sancerre in bulk. We drink that with everything.

TG: And if you want something special?
DJ: Then I'm the last one to ask-John picks it out. Sometimes he gets his wine from a little place called the Dernière Goutte.

TG: Do you have links to America outside of reading the (Herald) Trib?
DJ: I do read the Trib and we follow American politics avidly. I am active in a group called Democrats Abroad. And we have a lot of American friends here, something I swore would not happen. You don't come to France to hang out with Americans but in fact you do.

TG: How has living in Paris affected your work? How has your writing changed as a result of living here?
DJ: I don't know that my writing has changed but my subject has. I've always written about where I am and since I'm in Paris…And since culture clashes are always comic subjects my last novels, Le Divorce and Le Mariage have been described as comedies of manners.

TG: You have been described as the Edith Wharton of your generation.
DJ: That seems to be the definition and of course it's not one I'd reject.

TG: And finally, how has Paris changed your life?
DJ: Not having to own a car as made me realize what a waste of time the automobile is. And of course, you never really feel yourself changing but I think that I get more work done. I certainly feel a broader, richer experience of life. In some ways I am a happier, more productive person.