Perestroika in Paris by Jane Smiley

Jane Smiley's Perestroika in Paris was an easy reading, charming book, but for many pages I wondered what was the 'point'? Every book that gives animals human thought and language has a point, right? 

Sure, Paras (short for Perestroika) is a wonderful character, a filly too curious for her own good, who leaves the comforts of her home at the stable and the horse racing she loves to see the world--or, at least, Paris under the Eiffel Tower.

Then there is Frida, the German Shorthaired Pointer ticked all over with a brown head and two patches, left on her own when her brilliant and eccentric owner is picked up from the streets by the gendarme. Frida understands human behavior better than we understand each other.

Paras and Frida meet up and help each other, for Paras has brought her groomer's purse filled with winnings from the last race Paras ran. Frida takes the euros to the local shops and returns with dinner for them and their new friends, the bickering mallard ducks, Sid and Nancy, and Raoul, an aged raven.

Paras walks the streets of Paris by night, visiting a Patisserie for a meal. Into her life comes Etienne, an eight-year-old human child living with his blind and deaf great-grandmother in the rundown family mansion. The elderly lady knits, using up her stash of yard, worrying about what will happen to her great-grandson upon her death, wondering if she did right by keeping him from school.

The child secretly takes Paras into his home and his heart, Frida joining the family. They are befriended by the house rats Conrad and his son Kurt. Together they cobble together everything they need.

Just when everything seems to have gone wrong, and Etienne faces his biggest challenge, the story resolves happily.

The story never gets too syrupy and never gets preachy. And yet, I did find a 'point'.

First, it is the story of family, the families we create by helping one another, joining our strengths, even if we seemingly have nothing in common--are 'different species'.

Second, it is about finding our bliss, how curiosity leads us to new discoveries and fulfillment.

Third, Etienne's family has survived horrible tragedy. WWI and WWII, the deaths of Etienne's great-grandfather and his grandfather and his parents. 

"It was their fate as a family, perhaps, or merely lick, merely a part of being French in the twentieth century, when wars came and went like terrifying, unstoppable tempests." ~from Perestroika in Paris by Jane Smiley

Out of great tragedy, we can survive and even thrive.

And last of all, there is the fortitude and persistence these animals show, accepting what they cannot change and changing what they can change.

In the end, I discovered a novel that can be read by any age, in any age, portraying the core values that make a life.

I was sent a free book by the publisher. My review is fair and unbiased.

Perestroika in Paris
by Jane Smiley
Publication December 1, 2020
Knopf
$26.95 hardcover
ISBN 10: 52552035X; ISBN  13: 9780525520351

from the publisher

Paras, short for "Perestroika," is a spirited racehorse at a racetrack west of Paris. One afternoon at dusk, she finds the door of her stall open and--she's a curious filly--wanders all the way to the City of Light. She's dazzled and often mystified by the sights, sounds, and smells around her, but she isn't afraid. Soon she meets an elegant dog, a German shorthaired pointer named Frida, who knows how to get by without attracting the attention of suspicious Parisians. Paras and Frida coexist for a time in the city's lush green spaces, nourished by Frida's strategic trips to the vegetable market. They keep company with two irrepressible ducks and an opinionated raven. But then Paras meets a human boy, Etienne, and discovers a new, otherworldly part of Paris: the ivy-walled house where the boy and his nearly-one-hundred-year-old great-grandmother live in seclusion. As the cold weather and Christmas near, the unlikeliest of friendships bloom. But how long can a runaway horse stay undiscovered in Paris? How long can a boy keep her hidden and all to himself? Jane Smiley's beguiling new novel is itself an adventure that celebrates curiosity, ingenuity, and the desire of all creatures for true love and freedom

Other People's Pets by R. L. Mazies

La La has crime in her blood as surely as the Flying Wallendas have acrobatics, and the Kennedys, politics. ~from Other People's Pets by R. L. Maizes

I adore Other People's Pets! It is fresh and heartfelt, a perfect read during stressful times. La La and her father Zev will win your heart.

Even if they are burglars.

LaLa's mother ran off when she was nine. She wasn't a very good mother. When they were ice skating, LaLa fell through the ice and her mother didn't notice. LaLa was rescued by a large black dog. The near-death-event left her an animal empath.

Zev was a locksmith by day and a burglar by night. He homeschooled LaLa and took her on his heists, isolating her to protect himself. He couldn't risk his daughter giving away his secret life. LaLa has a special relationship with a veterinarian who notices her insight into animals and takes her under his wing.

LaLa is in vet school, living with her fiance, when her father lands in prison, unable to make bail. He was caught after calling 911 to help the man he was robbing. LaLa makes the hard decision to put her dad first.

As LaLa's life stray further from her dreams, she takes comfort that she only robs houses with ailing pets she can help.

LaLa and Zev have never recovered from their abandonment. Zev still carries a torch for his wife and LaLa dreams of gaining her mother's approval, which brings them to a fatal meeting.

LaLa faces a series of heartbreaking losses, including her beloved dog, Black. In the end, LaLa realizes the true meaning of family and finds her place in the world.

I love Mazies humor. Descriptions like, "The pores on his nose are big enough to house a fly" and "ears grown large from listening," and Zev's business name of "Honesty Locksmith," kept me laughing out loud.

I loved R. L. Mazies book of short stories We Love Anderson Cooper, filled with memorable, flawed, yet loveable characters.

Read an excerpt from Other People's Pets here.

I was given a free egalley by the publisher through NetGalley in exchange for a fair and unbiased review.

Other People's Pets
by R.L. Maizes
Celadon Books
Pub Date July 14, 2020 
ISBN: 9781250304131
hardcover $26.99 (USD)

R.L. Mazies

about the author

R.L. Maizes was born and raised in Queens, New York. She now lives in Boulder County, Colorado. Maizes's short stories have aired on National Public Radio and have appeared in the literary magazines Electric Literature, Witness, Bellevue Literary Review, Slice, and Blackbird, among others. Her essays have been published in The New York Times, The Washington Post, Lilith, and elsewhere. Maizes is an alumna of the Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference, the Sewanee Writers’ Conference, and the Tin House Summer Writer’s Workshop. Her work has received Honorable Mention in Glimmer Train’s Fiction Open contest, has been a finalist in numerous other national contests, and has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize. She is the author of the short story collection We Love Anderson Cooper.

from the publisher

R.L. Maizes's Other People’s Pets examines the gap between the families we’re born into and those we create, and the danger that holding on to a troubled past may rob us of the future.

La La Fine relates to animals better than she does to other people. Abandoned by a mother who never wanted a family, raised by a locksmith-turned-thief father, La La looks to pets when it feels like the rest of the world conspires against her.

La La’s world stops being whole when her mother, who never wanted a child, abandons her twice. First, when La La falls through thin ice on a skating trip, and again when the accusations of “unfit mother” feel too close to true. Left alone with her father—a locksmith by trade, and a thief in reality—La La is denied a regular life. She becomes her father’s accomplice, calming the watchdog while he strips families of their most precious belongings.

When her father’s luck runs out and he is arrested for burglary, everything La La has painstakingly built unravels. In her fourth year of veterinary school, she is forced to drop out, leaving school to pay for her father’s legal fees the only way she knows how—robbing homes once again.

As an animal empath, she rationalizes her theft by focusing on houses with pets whose maladies only she can sense and caring for them before leaving with the family’s valuables. The news reports a puzzled police force—searching for a thief who left behind medicine for the dog, water for the parrot, or food for the hamster.

Desperate to compensate for new and old losses, La La continues to rob homes, but it’s a strategy that ultimately will fail her.