Fiction
238 pages
www.shayyoungblood.com
Rating: out of 5
When reading Shay Youngblood's BLACK GIRL IN PARIS, you'll feel as
if you've stepped in to France's capital city yourself. You'll rendezvous
with Eden, the protagonist in Youngblood's adventurous tale, as she
travels the city in search of literary greatness and her mentor, James
Baldwin.
Eden grew up a poor Southern girl in Birmingham, when in the late
1960s, the racial climate was violent at its worst. The four girls killed in
the infamous church bombing was a significant event in Eden's young
just people and not a color.
So at age 26, recently graduated and looking for something more, Eden takes off to Paris. She arrives
with only $200 but hopes to gain immeasurable riches from life experiences.
During her stay in the City of Lights, Eden befriends many eccentric personalities, including her
flamboyant tour guide, Indego, who shows her the real Paris that tourists never see. She also involves
herself in romantic tete-a-tete with Ving, a white jazz musician. It is with him that despite how
liberated Paris seems, she's reminded with disdain that she's still a black woman. Eden also engages in
an erotic friendship with a woman, Luce, that teaches her the true meaning of love.
Every adventure, every moment is vividly captured in Eden's expedition in Paris that you feel as if
you're there, traveling with her through the French boulevards and savoring the foods. Although her
outing was the poor man's experience of Paris--many days she didn't know where she would lay her
head that night-- she emerged a much stronger person.
Youngblood's lyrical prose was superb, and her characters rang true. I wouldn't take nothing her
Eden's journey now -- except to one day go myself.
Reviewed January 2006
