The Little Paris Bookshop

Perdu decides to give Catherine some privacy, so he leaves the table in the hall and goes back to fetch the accompanying chair from his apartment. On his way, he thinks fondly about all the other residents in the building. Once Catherine stops crying, Perdu knocks on her door. They speak through the door, and he promises to bring her a “consoling kind” of book. Back in his apartment, the empty room taunts him. He slams the door closed, not ready to confront the memories that he has blocked off for so long.

The next morning, Perdu is at work aboard his floating bookshop. His “book barge,” named Literary Apothecary, is moored on the Seine River in the center of Paris. Perdu refuses to sell a book to a customer if he thinks the book is not the right fit for their emotional state. Perdu and the customer shout at each other. After she storms off, he reflects with surprise at his uncharacteristic outburst.

The book that the customer had wanted to buy was Night, the best-selling book written by another of Perdu’s neighbors, a young man named Max Jordan.

Perdu continues his workday, selling books to various customers. He responds thoughtfully to his customer’s inquiries and shares with one customer his desire to write “an encyclopedia about common emotions…from A for ‘anxiety about picking up hitchhikers’ to E for ‘early risers’ smugness’” (22).

As Perdu is feeding the two stray cats, Kafka and Lindgren, who often visit the boat, he hears someone coughing behind the shelves.

The coughs are Max Jordan’s. He’s been in the shop long enough to hear Monsieur Perdu refusing to sell Night to a customer. Perdu denies Max’s request to call him by his first name, instead calling him “Monsieur Jordan.” Perdu then explains that he likes Max’s book but that he sells books like medicine and aims to sell the right book to the right person at the right time. Perdu reflects on his unique ability to read a person’s face and body language, a skill he calls “transperception.”

Max confesses that he’s experiencing writer’s block. He asks Perdu what he does “when he can’t go on” (31), and Perdu shows Max his favorite book, Southern Lights. The book is written under a pseudonym, Sanary. Perdu has been analyzing the writing style for years, hoping to solve the mystery of the author’s true identity. He has narrowed it down to 11 possible authors. Perdu prescribes that Max read the book to help with his writer’s block.

As Max and Perdu are speaking, the customer to whom Perdu had refused to sell Night returns. She’s been crying, but the things that Perdu shouted at her made an impact. She asks Perdu to sell her the books that will be a good fit for her.

Perdu takes the customer, Anna, to the comfortable seating area on the boat and asks her a few questions about herself. It isn’t Anna’s answers to the questions but rather her tone of voice and the words she chooses that help Perdu understand her needs. He prescribes her “novels for willpower, nonfiction for rethinking one’s life, poems for dignity” (37). Anna sits and reads on the boat for a while, and Perdu notices that the books are making her feel happy. He wonders why no book has been able to do that for him.

On his walk home from work, Perdu wonders if their quiet street will be too boring for Catherine. Perdu delivers books to a few neighbors before arriving home at 27 Rue Montagnard. When he visits Catherine to drop off the books he’s selected for her, she tells him that she found the letter.

Catherine found a letter in the drawer of the kitchen table that Perdu gave her. She holds it out to him, but he reacts strongly, backing away and shouting that it is not his. In truth, he recognizes the writing on the envelope.

Seeing the familiar writing triggers memories for Perdu, memories of his romance with Manon. He finally thinks of her name, rather than calling her “---” in his mind. He remembers her smell and her touch, the way she named the rooms they met in. She had called the now-abandoned room in his apartment the Lavender Room. He remembers that she left him unexpectedly and sent this letter a few weeks later. He never opened the letter.

Perdu has a sort of epiphany that he’s grown older while he’s been avoiding life because of the heartbreak Manon’s departure caused. He storms back over to Catherine’s apartment to get the letter, but she doesn’t answer the door. He leaves a note asking her to bring the letter to him and to not read it.

Perdu wakes the next morning to find that Catherine never dropped off the letter. Later, he finds a note from her, inviting him to dinner and asking him to promise that he will read the letter. Before meeting Catherine for dinner, Perdu visits his father, Joaquin. Perdu’s parents are divorced and often send messages to each other through Perdu. Joaquin and Perdu walk to Joaquin’s boule game, talking about love and women.