This breezy slice of autofiction—which has echoes of works by authors such as Rachel Cusk—sees a writer shacking up in Paris. He’s in a part of the city far removed from the picture-postcard version beloved of ‘Emily in Paris’ or Woody Allen’s ‘Midnight in Paris’. Indeed, Allen’s film gets name-checked here, along with Ernest Hemingway’s ‘A Moveable Feast’ (which detailed Hemingway’s impressions of the city during the 1920s), and Chaudhuri’s narrator cites such works as he tries to forge his own impressions. His Paris, one might say, feels distinctly “un-Parisian”, the city being both gritty and busy. And by focusing on the quotidian, Chaudhuri offers psychological insight through a fragmentary narrative that homes in on the overlooked details of travel and the nature of being a fish out of water. The plot, such as it is, is scant, but the book’s joy comes from its wry humour and its fidelity to what has been observed. RM

Published by Faber