The American Student

The next morning I arrived at the Lycee in the pre-dawn cold. I carried seven books, a sweat suit with sneakers and wore my new brown French shoes, which had a zipper on the top. After we bought the books the previous day, my father took me to a store 'Chausettes Michel' and bought me the shoes. 'They’ll make you fit in better,' he said. 'It’ll take more than shoes,' I snapped, angry that the shoes were the most comfortable I’d ever worn. The students formed a circle around me in the courtyard. They didn’t ask questions; they just stared. They looked different from the kids back home. It went beyond their berets, scarves and pointed shoes and had more to do with the expressions on their faces as well as some of their features but I was too disoriented to notice what they were. I should have enjoyed the attention since at home my classmates ignored the foreign exchange students. My friends were mainly interested in fast cars, clothes, beer and sex. I felt bad for those students because they were far from home and must have been lonely not realizing that one day I’d be one of them. But here I faced the opposite problem. BOOK REVIEW A boy’s coming-of-age story runs through this debut novel filled with Cold War history (including a cameo by Willy Brandt) about a scary struggle with a villainous family. In 1960s France, Roy Harrison’s lawyer father, Steve, is serving a stint with the Air Force Reserve in Alsace-Lorraine. They’ve had a difficult relationship since Roy’s mother died a few years ago, and Roy didn’t want to go, but his father insisted. A man of discipline and few words, Steve is trying his best to be a good father, though intimacy doesn’t come easily to him. He enrolls Roy in a lycée, pitching him headfirst into French culture—not a welcoming atmosphere for an American kid. Barely speaking French is the least of Roy’s difficulties. One of his classmates, Robert LePerrier, goes out of his way to bully and abuse him for no discernible reason. Readers will be well into the tale before the back story emerges, detailing the LePerrier family’s sordid activities during WWII and their toxic attitudes that have infected their son. Their story (father Jean-Claude’s specifically) brings in two real-life figures from the past: the notorious Klaus Barbie, “Butcher of Lyon,” and Jean Moulin, hero of the Resistance. Steve confronts the LePerrier patriarch, exposing his dark past and bringing him to trial. Meanwhile, Roy has become fluent in French and has—much to his surprise but not the reader’s—come to love his place in France and his French friends. He has grown up; his father is proud of him—and says so. At times, reactions from characters can be a bit over the top, not matching the provocations. Nevertheless, the narrative is nicely bookended by passages set in Paris in 1999, when Roy runs into Robert, his old nemesis. They will never be close, but they understand each other. In the epilogue—later that weekend—Dr. Harrison flies home to the States and to his wife and his kids and his good life. An impressive debut novel; hopefully, there’s more. Kirkus Indie, Kirkus Media LLC, 6411 Burleson Rd., Austin, TX 78744 indie@kirkusreviews.com