Wednesday, September 7, 2022

Paris Blue by Julie Scolnik


PHOTO SOURCE:
TYPORAMA

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PARIS BLUE
JULIE SCOLNIK
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ALL INFORMATION IN THIS POST IS COURTESY OF THE AUTHOR.
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It is about the grip of first love.
 
Set against a backdrop of classical music and Paris in the late seventies.
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PRAISE FOR PARIS BLUE:

“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 seventeen novels

“Julie Scolnik’s memoir, Paris Blue, brings full spectrum color to a love affair with Paris, music, and a man whose limited vision couldn’t keep her from shining. Filled with sensuousness, sound, and light, as well as the hard edge of truth, this story of first love grips the reader tight."—Jennifer Rosner, author of If a Tree Falls and The Yellow Bird Sings

Paris Blue gives melody to our common fancy: that Paris is where all great romances play out. Julie Scolnik’s memoir, recalling for us the myopia of innocence, returns us to our own first loves while establishing itself as a riveting tale both unique and universal.”—Gregory Maguire, novelist, and author of Wicked 

“The haunting impact of our first true and deep love stays with us the remainder of our lives, and all of us struggle in some way to put those emotions—the exultation, the revelries of passion and belonging, and the ultimate scars of loss—into a workable context. This memoir explores the process, including the barriers, the relapses and the ultimate conclusion that one’s life needs to find its own forms.”—Greg Fields, author of Arc of the Comet and Through the Waters and the Wild

Paris Blue, Julie Scolnik’s memoir of first love in Paris, is written with the tender romanticism of Wordsworth and the devastating realism of Flaubert. Her lyrical writing about music transforms these discordant halves into a compelling whole, creating a dazzling love letter to a life lived in music.”—Linda Katherine Cutting, author of Memory Slips

Captivating! Paris Blue could speak to anyone who’s ever yearned for closure that never came. But Julie Scolnik’s memoir doesn’t simply try to make sense of a bewildering romance; through telling the story she manages to bless the past, in all its complexity, while giving herself fully to the present.”—Leah Hager Cohen, author of Strangers and Cousins and The Grief of Others

“Julie Scolnik’s beautiful page turner of a memoir captures with rare insight the power of music, words, and Paris to drive love to madness. To read her pitch perfect writing is to relive the exhilarations and vulnerabilities of one’s twenties.”—Judith Coffin, author of Sex, Love, and Letters: Writing Simone de Beauvoir

“Nothing burns hotter than young love, and Julie Scolnik captures that singular fervor in Paris Blue. But her memoir is more than that: it’s a deeply felt, bittersweet reflection on how youthful passion changes you and clings to you, forever.”—Howard Reich, author of Prisoner of Her Past, and The Art of Inventing Hope: Intimate Conversations with Elie Wiesel

Paris Blue drew me in from the opening descriptions of France through a young American woman’s eyes, and its textural details match the depth of the story: a tale of love and exploration. The letters that begin each chapter evoke deep romance and allow the reader to share the author’s sense of possibility. In the final chapters, time moves more quickly, and Scolnik’s growing sense of discovery brings wonderful closure to the story.”—Alex Myers, author of Revolutionary and Continental Divide

“Who hasn’t dreamed of living a year in Paris? Scolnik lived that dream when she was 20, and brings us inside the exhilaration and heartaches of first love, observing her relationship with Luc in such rich detail that she makes it both unique and universal.”—Michael Blanding, author of North by Shakespeare and The Map Thief

Paris Blue is remarkable in its graceful and forthright sensitivity and insight as she recounts a first great love in all its passion, romance, and pain, set in Paris and a world of music. I couldn’t put the book down."—Judith Wechsler, author of A Human Comedy: Physiognomy and Caricature in 19th century Paris

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ABOUT PARIS BLUE:

PARIS, 1976: Twenty-year-old American student Julie Scolnik arrives 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. 
 
This deeply 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 seventies, and, spanning three decades, evolves from deep romance to sudden heartbreak, and finally to a lifelong quest for answers to release hidden immutable grief.
 
A deeply felt, bittersweet reflection on how youthful passion changes you and clings to you forever,  PARIS BLUE is a true fairy-tale memoir with a dark underbelly about the tenacious grip of first love.

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR: 

PHOTO CREDIT:  SEUNGOH RYU

JULIE SCOLNIK is a concert flutist and the founding artistic director of Mistral Music, a chamber music series which since 1997 has been known for its virtuosic artists, imaginative programming, and the personal rapport she establishes with her audiences. 
 
Since her treatment and recovery from breast cancer in 2005, Scolnik has found ways to play and organize benefit concerts which raise funds for support for underserved women with the disease. 
 
She lives in Boston with her husband, physicist Michael Brower, and her two cats, Daphne and Chloë. 
 
They have two adult children, also musicians: pianist Sophie Scolnik-Brower and cellist Sasha Scolnik-Brower. 
 
The three of them perform frequently together. Ms. Scolnik has released three solo CDs. 
 
Paris Blue is her debut memoir, and is a story that she has been wanting to tell for over forty years.
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LINK TO ALL PR:  https://conta.cc/3DpvR5A

AWARDS:

Literary Titan Silver Award
New England Book Festival winner of Memoir Category
Independent Press Award Distinguished Favorite
Amazon #1 Best-seller. 
Firebird Award Winner
Page Turner Finalist
Outstanding Creator Award in 7 categories
Artists Promoting Success Book Award IN Non-Fiction
Elit Bronze Award
 
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3 comments:

  1. Sounds good.

    Adding it to your TBR?

    Thanks for stoppping.

    ReplyDelete
  2. The book sounds very emotional as well. Thank you for the review.

    ReplyDelete