The Little Paris Bookshop

Perdu has a dream that he can breathe underwater. Upon waking, he sees that Max has fallen asleep reading Southern Lights. Perdu borrows a bike from the women on the Baloo and rides into town where he trades a few books for food and supplies. Perdu writes a postcard to Catherine, addressing it to everyone at number 27 because he knows they’ll all read it. Perdu longs for Catherine and for Manon.

Perdu and Max cast off again, continuing to head south through the network of canals. Max tells Perdu that his dream means that he’s, “no longer choked” by his emotions (146). The men take Lulu through the first of 150 locks on their journey to the Mediterranean.

Plotting their next stop, Perdu realizes that they’re passing near the home of a famous American writer, P. D. Olson. Olson is one of the 11 authors Perdu thinks may have written Southern Lights. Perdu and Max decide to pay him a visit. Olson evades their questions about whether he is Sanary. Instead, he takes them to a secret tango club in an old schoolhouse.

In a diary entry dated April 11, 1987, Manon reflects that she does not feel like the same person after having spent eight months in Paris. She still loves Luc and wants to marry him, but she also loves Perdu and does not plan to break up with him. Manon does not want to talk to her family about Perdu even though he means so much to her. Still, she believes her mother suspects she is seeing another man.

Manon writes about reading and traveling with Perdu, how free she feels with him. She feels overwhelmed by the freedom and desire that have led her to love two men; she wonders if she is too selfish or greedy to want them both.

Manon also describes how she and Perdu are different. She describes him as a thinker, someone who knows a lot but can be detached from his body. On the other hand, she writes, “I am my body” (165). This difference is highlighted when they go tango dancing. She teaches him to dance by demanding that he stop thinking. Once he learns, the tango is something that they love to do together.

In Manon’s closing lines, she wishes that the lump in her armpit is nothing serious. 

Perdu recognizes this club to be one of many clandestine tango clubs for people who love the romantic, sensual dance but need to keep it a secret from their conservative friends and families.

In the room full of dancers, Perdu explains some of the customs to Max and encourages him to dance with someone. At the bar in the tango club, Perdu meets an Italian man named Salvatore Cuneo. Cuneo has been searching for 20 years for a woman with whom he spent one night. He has become a jack-of-all-trades, moving up and down the river taking odd jobs while he searches. He’s known to be a great cook.

Perdu dances with a young woman, which stirs up a lot of memories about Manon. He thinks to himself that the young woman and Manon dance with the same energy, the same hunger. Shouting erupts while Perdu and the young woman are dancing.

Five men break into the dance club, violently wrenching the dancers apart. Max, Perdu, Cuneo, Olson, and Perdu’s partner flee in Cuneo’s car. They drive to the river, where the boat is moored. Cuneo decides it isn’t safe to stay and joins Perdu and Max as they set off again. Olson tells Perdu that he is not the author of Southern Lights. He gives Perdu a clue, saying that the true author is a woman, and that she might be found in the town of Cuisery. Perdu’s dance partner gives him a farewell kiss.

Cuneo unpacks a collection of cooking oils and spices, and the men discuss the power of food and aroma to stir the soul. They take Lulu into the marina at Briare, where Cuneo asks everyone if they’ve seen the boat he’s looking for, Moonlight. Cuneo offers to buy food when he realizes that Max and Perdu have no money, but they insist on earning money rather than taking favors. Cuneo has the idea that they open the Literary Apothecary for business, and they begin selling books.

Cuneo makes a lovely dinner and Perdu finds himself wondering, “Can eating heal you?” (191). The three men stay moored in the Briare marina for a week. Perdu sends a postcard to Catherine each day. He also begins making notes for his encyclopedia of emotions.

On a quiet summer night, the three travelers lie on Lulu’s deck and smoke a joint. Perdu feels ashamed that he has not told Max and Cuneo that Manon is dead. Perdu doesn’t know it yet, but Max has already seen Manon’s obituary and knows the truth.

After the others have gone to bed, Perdu takes down the flag that Manon sewed and presses his face to a spot of blood she left on it. Silently, Perdu asks Manon’s forgiveness.

The Lulu and her passengers continue down-river, through the vineyards of the Loire Valley. Max spots a deer drowning in the canal because it cannot climb the steep, man-made walls. The men try to save the deer but are unsuccessful. Afterward, they’re too sad to even look at each other.

The men are silent and subdued after the incident with the deer. The next day, they stop in a village where Cuneo has friends. Cuneo’s friends Javier and Zelda, their daughter Elaia, and son Leon live in a big house in an artistic country town. Elaia, in her twenties, has had cancer since she was a young girl. When Perdu, Cuneo, and Max arrive at the house, she is naked and painting in the garden.

Javier and his family invite Perdu and the others for dinner. Perdu’s grief is strong at seeing a young woman with cancer. He stays outside alone in the garden for a while. Perdu sees Elaia and Max slip into a back bedroom together. Then, Perdu begins crying. He feels relief and warmth after an intense bout of sobbing. He rushes into the house to join the others for dinner and announces that he has something he must tell Max and Cuneo. He plans to tell them about Manon.