Paris Blue tells the story of your first love. Why was this an important book for you to write?

Such a big question, and such a good one.

I might start by quoting a line I recently discovered from Maya Angelou in which she said, “There is no greater agony than bearing an untold story inside you.” For over forty years I knew I had a story I would need to tell some day. Readers have recognized that there is something about this tale that goes beyond a simple story of first love. It follows the arc of my life over thirty years, into adulthood, happy marriage, and children, so it is also very much about the role of memory in our lives.

Also, the book describes how I searched for answers and closure for so many decades from the trauma at age twenty-two when the romance suddenly ended, and in a way, I essentially had to write my own ending, which brought about its own sort of catharsis.

I appreciated the candid nature with which you told your story. What was the hardest thing for you to write about?

Oh, another great question. At one point in my decades-long journey of trying to tell this story, I changed the book into “fiction,” or at least I tried. I made it into a novel in which I tried to fictionalize certain parts and detach myself from the more personal parts. And I did this in order to protect my family, most notably my wonderful husband. Even though he has been unbelievably supportive about this long-suffering literary endeavor, I didn’t want to put in first-person writing the intensity of emotions that first love generates. Or draw attention to the music and poetry that I shared with the Frenchman that I don’t share in the same way with my husband. In the end, however, I realized that writing a memoir was the correct, most honest form and genre that this story had to be.

What is one piece of advice you wish someone had given you when you were younger?

HA! I really don’t know how to answer this! Even though this story caused me a great deal of suffering at age twenty-two, I probably don’t wish it had happened any other way. If I answered something like, “I wish someone had told me that married men stay married” or “I wish someone had advised me to read the signals,” that would be way too simplistic and would not do justice to the subtleties of this fairytale (and I wouldn’t have a book).

What do you hope readers take away from your story?

That, when an intense, romantic and passionate “first love” ends suddenly without answers, it can take a lifetime to get over.

That words, music, and Paris can drive love to madness.

That our memories are not to be deleted and canceled, but treasured, whatever the outcome, and that they are our “life and food for future years.” (Wordsworth)

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