“Not every true story is like a good novel, but this one is. Not every memoir of first love has a satisfying ending, but this one does. The confluence of first love with becoming an artist makes this memoir special.”
— John Irving, best-selling author of 17 novels.

Paris Blue: The Story

PARIS, 1976: Twenty-year-old American student Julie Scolnik had just arrived in the City of Light to study the flute, when, from across a sea of faces in the chorus of the Orchestre de Paris, she is drawn to Luc, a striking (married) French lawyer in the bass section. He has a dire need to learn English, so they begin reading fairytales and poetry in parks and cafés, becoming enmeshed in a private universe of esthetics and charm, and deepening a covert bond that comes to a shocking end eighteen months later.

This love-at-first-sight, moving tale of an ebullient young American and a reserved Frenchman will transport readers to the cafés, streets, and concert halls of Paris in the late 1970’s, and, spanning three decades, evolves from deep romance to sudden heartbreak, and finally into a lifelong quest for answers to release immutable grief. Set against a magical backdrop of Paris and classical music, PARIS BLUE is a true fairy-tale memoir (with a dark underbelly), about the tenacious grip of first love.