Left Bank [Paperback]

Kate Muir has written a smart, funny, moving book about the dissolution of a seemingly ideal marriage on Paris' swanky Left Bank. Although it's tempting to race through the book to see what happens to the protagonists, Madison and Olivier Malin, and their young daughter, Sabine, you may want to slow down - or at the very least return to "Left Bank" for a second read. There's an awful lot you would miss.

From the start it's clear that the Malin's glamorous world isn't everything it appears to be. Madison, a stunning but aging American film star who has managed to all but erase her Texan roots, is more concerned about her hairdo and her next botox injection than she is about spending time with her daughter. Olivier, no slouch in the looks department himself, spends his time thinking about his next amorous conquest, his next gourmet meal and "pinging out perfectly crafted paragraphs, each cocooning some clever thought" (read: nonsense) for his next book on philosophy (one of his most adhered to personal philosophies has to do with the free pursuit of happiness). Sabine, their adorable 7-year-old daughter, is anything but happy.

Fortunately she has a host of other adults who dote on her: a new English nanny, Anna, who falls in love with her young charge as well as her charge's father; a Chechnyan housekeeper, Luiza, who pines after her son still living in Chechnya and showers her mother-love on Sabine; and the bat-like French concierge of the Malin's luxe apartment building on Rue du Bac, Madame Canovas, whose violent death helps the story rush to its climax.

We've seen the plot before: apparently model marriage comes apart when the father falls for the cute young nanny, but in Muir's hands this old story takes on new heft. Muir's clever, often hysterically funny, sometimes tender and ultimately sad characterizations give us some real personalities to identify with as things begin to destruct. The juxtaposition of cultures - American, French, British and Chechnyan - makes for a United Nations of protagonists and potential conflicts. Muir also delves into the worlds of philosophy, literature, art, film, fashion and, perhaps most compellingly, cuisine. (Olivier considers himself a "gastrophilosophe," a man who "understands that food is for the soul," and, as such, he takes us on mouthwatering adventures through cheese shops and charcuteries, boulangeries and bistros. It's enough to make you very hungry.)

In short, "Left Bank" is a smart book by a clever, well-travelled, erudite woman who can really write. Read it and you'll be entertained; revisit it and you'll feel as though you've almost traveled to France yourself. Warning, though: you might just find yourself googling air tickets to Paris.

Kate Muir's wry, sardonic Left Bank opens with a scene that so many parents dread - the inexplicable disappearance of their child. When the handsome forty-something Frenchman Olivier Marlin and his beautiful Texan-born actress wife Madison lose their daughter Sabine in PlayWorld Paris, an American-style fun park, the event signifies the beginning of the end for their delicate and brittle marriage.

More intent with keeping up appearances than seeing to Sabine's well being, Olivier and Madison have been living a life of self-absorption and conceit. The "it" couple of Paris, Oliver is considered one of France's leading philosophy writers - his latest book is the controversial Chechnya - Beyond Philosophy - and his days are filled with sampling the gastric delights of his countrymen, whilst also intent to line up a steady assortment of secretaries to sleep with.

Madison endures Olivier's dalliances; perhaps because she's intent to keep a type of youthful hubris and also because she's seeking to escape from being tarred as a Texan model turned actress; she wants to be a true Parisian. She's the kind of woman who carefully attends her own inner life, and is remarkably self-obsessed. She even engages in a platonic extramarital affair with her friend Paul, more out of necessity rather than desire.

Both Madison and Olivier have a strained and edgy understanding, a type of reciprocated arrangement - the affairs - real for him, fictional for her - balance their relationship and temper their half-hearted commitment to Sabine. But the delicate and frail dynamics of their life together, their world of intellectualism, gastronomy and coiffure is altered by arrival at the rue du Bac Anna Ayer, a hip English nanny.

Anna had lived in Paris for four years and already knows the reputation of Olivier and Madison - he was the unavoidable fodder for late-night cultural television shows and she notorious for sub-pornographic art-house films. Sabine takes an instant liking to Anna, and Anna is worldly and groovy enough to realize that she can offer this child the security and emotional stability she needs.

Anna's carefree and happy-go-lucky beauty doesn't escape the wondering eye of Olivier. She sees him as the handsome heroic philosopher in a flak jacket, part of the chattering classes, whilst Oliver gets caught up in an affair with her. After all, there is nothing Olivier enjoys more other than a perfect meal than the pursuit of love - extramarital love.

But Olivier and Anna's surreptitious affair threatens to come undone by doings of the blowsy and strictly Catholic concierge, Madame Canovas; she's all too quick to spy on the couple, especially when she has Sabine's best interests at heart. Muir deftly mixes up the transatlantic pot and lets the sparks fly as Olivier, Anna and Madison inevitably clash.

There's certainly something rotten in the state of the rue du Bac, a selfishness and disregard for others, particularly with Olivier and his ridiculous existentionalist justifications for his behaviour. The author casts a discerning and humorous eye on Paris and Parisians, and sometimes her observations are not that flattering. Oliver, in particular is portrayed as too well bread to believe in openness and full disclosure. He's secretly more "bourgeois than bohemian" and unashamedly dislikes "the wet-bottomed tedium of toddler hood."

As Madison's world of coiffure is turned upside down, she realizes she's been somehow acting her life, trying to escape her dusty Texan roots by becoming a perfect French beauty; marrying a celebrated French intellectual, and performing as part of a public couple. And Anna can no longer fall back on the perfect fantasy father when everything goes wrong in her life.

Obviously these are not bad people; rather they are a little ill intentioned; they simply disregard the feelings of others whilst trying to meet the daily demands of busy lives. As the dead weight of the affair with Anna begins to swamp Olivier, he begins to realize it is also years of other affairs and misunderstandings, "layers of rotten flesh that need to be cut away" so that they can return to the bones of his relationship with Madison.

Muir's crisp, lively and entertaining prose perfectly captures the world of Parisian left bank artists, filmmakers and left wing intellectuals. She perfectly defines Olivier and Madison's mannered and sophisticated world, where appearances and product placements mean more than loyalty and good solid and devoted parenting. For her part, Madison only desires the happiness of Sabine; her child is the one person in her life, other than herself that she is able to love categorically. Mike Leonard August 06.

a truly fabulous read. i endorse all that liz from connecticut said and cannot better it. like her i laughed all the way through. i have never been to paris and intend to go as soon as possible to retrace the adventures of the book's protagonists as they sought happiness and enlightenment through the fantastic bistros, cheeseries and charcuteries of this most elegant of cities. A parable for our times? mrs muir is a rare talent. i cannot wait for her next book. might i suggest humbly she seeks a more challenging canvas than the goings on in a marriage. she should aim bigger and seek a global stage for her talent.that is my only reservation.