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TRANSCRIPT
GoodbyeParis
A book proposal for
Submitted by
Joe Bunting4155 Venice Lane
Carpinteria, CA [email protected]
805.705.9245
A Community Adventure in the City of Light
Presented On
October 1, 2014
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Goodbye Paris Book Proposal Overview
I. CONTENT
A. Premise
In the Spring of 2014, Joe Bunting went on a two month trip to Paris with his wife and 10 month old son, Mars Bars. While there, he asked thousands of his followers to choose adventures for him to accomplish in Paris. He got dozens of suggestions, from meeting a stranger in a Montmartre bar to shadowing a street performer in front of Notre Dame to exploring the thousands of miles of caves below Paris. This is the story of his adventures… and everything that went wrong along the way.
B. Unique Selling Proposition
If consumers in the target market purchase and read Goodbye Paris, then they will:
• Wake up the next morning with a keen desire to visit Paris and see a different side of the city than most tourists view.
• Have a sense of satisfaction, as if they had visited Paris themselves.• A deeper understanding of Parisian history and culture.• Know how to better fit in as a tourist.
Because the book will:
• Share unique sites, restaurants, and experiences that most tourists don’t realize exist.• Tell vivid stories from the young couple’s two month stay in Paris, featuring street-side
cafés, illegal explorations of the secret caves underneath Paris, lavish dinners, warm fresh-baked baguettes, long walks along the Seine, trips to the open-air markets, painting in the Luxembourg Gardens, French cooking lessons, and learning the art of French romance.
• Explain the history of Paris, which is visible everywhere, especially the history of the Modernist writers and artists (e.g. Hemingway, Stein, Pound, and Joyce) who made Paris their home in the 1920s.
• Tutor potential tourists in cultural faux pas learned over the couples’ two month stay.
C. Overview
The manuscript will be divided into five parts:
Part I: ParIs, You’re LookIng oLd and tIred
Paris certainly wasn’t Joe Bunting’s first choice. Why not go somewhere unique (not to mention less expensive!) Phnom Penh or Buenos Aires or even Prague? Paris, to him, was over-rated and over-priced. But when Grandma decided to get married in an Italian villa outside of Florence for her 85th birthday, he decided going to Paris was the only way to convince his wife to stay in Europe a few months longer.
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Goodbye Paris Book Proposal Overview
This section tells the story stories:
• Grandma’s planned elopement in Florence• “Paris might not be so bad”• The Perfect Apartment… Canceled
A chapter will be spent on each.
Part II: ParIs, You sIren, WhY do You Make It so hard to Love You
Getting to Paris wasn’t as easy as Joe thought it would be. First, the apartment they were renting in Montmartre was canceled just a month before they were set to leave. Then, the new apartment they found in Saint Germain was $1000 a month over their budget. Worse, the plane tickets, which they were planning to use airline miles to purchase, were about 40,000 miles more than expected. Were they ever going to get to Paris?
This section tells the stories of:
• “How are we going to afford Paris at all?”• How I got hundreds of people to tell me what to do in the city of Light• How we almost missed our flight, three times!
A chapter will be spent on each.
Part III: ParIs, rosencrans Was rIght about You
Joe and Talia had made it to Paris. Now they just had to get to their apartment. This was made more difficult since they couldn’t afford a taxi and so they had to maneuver the train stations with six suitcases and bags between them plus a baby. Oh, and it was raining. Oh, and the door code on the apartment didn’t work (it had been reset the day before). Welcome to Paris! They were locked out, in the rain, with a baby. Now what?
This section tells the stories of:
• Welcome to Paris!• Why You Shouldn’t Land in Paris on a Sunday• Walking to the Louvre, where diarrhea strikes• Making Friends: French and Otherwise
A chapter will be spent on each.
Part Iv: ParIs, MInd If I tILt on Your WIndMILL?
Hundreds of friends and followers suggested adventures for Joe and Talia to accomplish in Paris. The highlight was when Joe was challenged to explore the illegal caves and catacombs
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Goodbye Paris Book Proposal Overview
underneath Paris (there are about 1,000 miles of caves below the city). When his original guide to the caves fell through, he thought he wouldn’t be able to accomplish the adventure. Then, by chance, a poet friend connected him to Giles Thomas, a world expert on the caves of Paris. On the last night of his stay in Paris, Joe waded through knee-deep water, crouched through waist-high caves, and discovered the hidden German bunkers 180 feet below Paris.
This section tells the stories of:
• The Caves of Paris• The Catacombs of Paris• Asking Directions… in French• Chilling with Jim Morrison at Pére Lachaise Cemetery• Cooking in Paris• Painting in the Luxembourg Gardens (plus How to Sell Your Art on the Street)• French Onion Soup• Shadow a Street Performer (for € 1,000)• Perform Singing in the Rain Under the Arc de Triomphe• 10 Museums• French Romance• Paris from the Perspective of a One Year Old• The Lock that Broke Ponte des Artes’ Back• Visit Hemingway’s Favorite Bar• Meet a Stranger in a Café
A short chapter will be spent on each.
Part v: goodbYe, ParIs
It was one in the morning about a week before they were set to leave, and Joe had missed
the last train of the night. Joe rented a street bike and started peddling home. His route
took him past Notre Dame, past the Louvre, past one of Hemingway’s favorite cafés,
and through several romantic Parisian alleys. “Goodbye, Notre Dame,” he said as he rode
past. “Goodbye, Louvre. Goodbye, Seine. Goodbye, Paris.”
This section tells the stories of:
• Suicide Watch• Grandma in Paris• Goodbye Paris• Epilogue: Florence, Rome, and Grandma’s “Wedding”
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Goodbye Paris Book Proposal Overview
II. MANUSCRIPT
A. Manuscript Status
Several chapters have been finished, including the attached sample chapters. Several more (totaling about 20,000 words) are at some state of completion.
B. Special Features
Optional insert: photography from our adventures in Paris.
Also includes the Goodbye Paris Tourist Guide, a guide through some of the books’ best sites, as well as a tourist tips section and a recommended walking route.
The book will also have special online components at goodbyeparisbook.com, including special video segments, behind the scenes content, and extra chapters.
C. Anticipated Length
40,000 to 50,000 words.
D. Anticipated Completion Date
The manuscript can be completed within four months after commitment from a publisher.
III. AUTHOR INFORMATION
A. Background
Joe Bunting is a professional ghostwriter, author, and blogger. He is the publisher of TheWritePractice.com, a blog and online workbook for writers, and the creator of StoryCartel.com, a service to help authors get reviews on their books. He is the author of the bestselling book Let’s Write a Short Story! and the well-reviewed short story “Hands.” He lives in Santa Barbara, California with his wife and son.
C. Previous Writing
Joe Bunting is the ghostwriter and author of four books, including the highly-reviewed Kingdom Journeys by Seth Barnes and the bestselling writing instruction book, Let’s Write a Short Story. In addition to writing books, he is the founder of one of the top writing blogs online, The Write Practice, which receives about 135,000 visitors a month. He has contributed to Bible Study Magazine, Copyblogger, and other print and online publications.
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Goodbye Paris Book Proposal Overview
IV. THE MARKET
A. Demographic Description
The audience for Goodbye Paris will be middle-aged, middle- to upper-class readers who enjoy travel and have been, or want to go, to Paris.
B. Psychographic Description
This book’s audience will be made up of people who love travel and may or may not have been to Paris. A secondary demographic will be made up of people interested in crowdsourcing and social media who are intrigued about the idea of crowdsourced, crowdfunded world travel.
C. Affinity Group
Travel ChanelRick StevesDavid LebovitzFood NetworkKickstarter
D. Personal Marketing
Joe Bunting will engage his contacts with top bloggers like Jeff Goins, Laura Ortberg, Ally and Darrel Vesterfelt, and others. Joe Bunting will also market the book on Twitter, where he has over 17,500 followers combined over several accounts, on Story Cartel, a platform he created for authors, which has over 26,000 subscribed readers, and on The Write Practice, with over 14,000 subscribed readers.
E. Sample Cover Copy
What happens when you crowdsource your trip to Paris and hundreds of people suggest adventures, exotic meals, and people to meet in the City of Light?
Goodbye Paris tells the story of one couple’s adventure in Paris as they explore the caves underneath the city, try exotic food (tripe? yummy!), and take painting, cooking, and language lessons from the locals, all while taking care of their one year old son (or trying to). When you ask people what to do in Paris, be ready to try anything!
VI. COMPETITION
A. Paris to the Moon by Adam Gopnik. From the cover: “In 1995, Adam Gopnik, his wife, and their infant son left the familiar comforts and hassles of New York City for the urbane glamour of the City of Light.… As Gopnik describes in this funny and tender book, the dual processes of navigating a foreign city and becoming a parent are not completely dissimilar journeys—both
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Goodbye Paris Book Proposal Overview
hold new routines, new languages, a new set of rules by which everyday life is lived.”
Similarities: Both Goodbye Paris and Paris to the Moon involve an American taking his wife and infant son on an extended stay Paris.
Differences: Written in 1995, Paris to the Moon is a well-written, but standard memoir. Goodbye Paris, on the other hand, is a crowdsourced memoir, behind the rules of the genre so that it’s almost a “Choose-Your-Own-Adventure” memoir.
B. The Sweet Life in Paris by David Lebovitz. From the cover: “Like so many others, David Lebovitz dreamed about living in Paris…. But he soon discovered it’s a different world en France. From learning the ironclad rules of social conduct to the mysteries of men’s footwear, from shopkeepers who work so hard not to sell you anything to the etiquette of working the right way around the cheese plate, here is David’s story of how he came to fall in love with—and even understand—this glorious, yet sometimes maddening, city.”
Similarities: The tone of both memoirs is humorous and self-mocking. Both memoirs revel in the strangeness of French culture, and the awkwardness of an American trying to fit in.
Differences: While Lebovitz focuses on the food scene in Paris, Bunting takes in the literary aspects of Paris, both contemporary and historical.
C. The Innocents Abroad by Mark Twain. Mark Twain’s best-selling memoir tells the story of a first-of-its-kind cruise to Europe and the Holy Land. With biting humor, Twain describes the adventures he and a group of Americans undertook, often teasing his fellow travellers and himself for their awkwardness in the face of other cultures.
Similarities: Both The Innocents Abroad and Goodbye Paris tell awkward and funny stories of Americans traveling abroad.
Differences: While The Innocents Abroad skips through dozens of different cities in Europe, the Middle East, and North Africa, Goodbye Paris focuses on the adventures of one couple (and a few of their American friends) and their adventures in Paris and Italy.
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Goodbye Paris Book Proposal Overview
VII. OUTLINE / CHAPTER SYNOPSIS
chaPter-bY-chaPter sYnoPsIs
Goodbye ParisA Community Adventure in the City of Lights
by Joe Bunting
ProLogue: hoW dId I end uP here?
Paris sounded like the perfect trip for a writer, but when Joe found himself nearly a hundred feet below the city of Paris in alone in an abandoned quarry at two in the morning equipped with “the smallest flashlight in the world,” he started to wonder why he ever signed up for this.
Part I: ParIs, You’re LookIng oLd and tIred
Introduction: Grandma is Getting Married
Blame this whole thing on Grandma. For her 85th birthday, Grandma decided to get married to her 75 year old fiancé in Florence, which meant the whole family was going to Europe. And since Joe and Talia were going to be there already, might as well stay for a couple of months, right?
Chapter 1: The Secret to Convincing Your Wife to Live in Paris
How do you convince your wife to leave her home, her family, her job, and go to Paris with her one-year old infant for two months? Step 1: Ask her to live in Paris for two months. Done!
Chapter 2: Our Perfect Apartment… Was Canceled
It hadn’t been easy, but Joe and Talia had found the perfect apartment in Montmartre. Then, it was cancelled only a month before they were set to leave! What were they going to do?
Part II: ParIs, You sIren, WhY do You Make It so hard to Love You
Chapter 3: Over Budget and Underpaid
After the apartment debacle, Joe had found a new place in Saint Germain and had even gotten a deal from the landlord for half the price. But it was still $2,100 a month and way out of their budget, especially since Talia was quitting her job. Paris would be the adventure of a lifetime, if only they could afford it.
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Goodbye Paris Book Proposal Overview
Chapter 4: How to Crowdsource Paris
Joe crunched the numbers and realized they could if they could just get an extra $600 they could afford Paris. How to get the money? Kickstarter seemed like an obvious choice, but what started as a simple project ballooned into a massive, crowdsourced adventure—Joe originally called it a choose-your-own-adventure memoir, but the CYOA publishers sent him a cease and desist letter—a project that raised more than seven times what he originally planned.
Chapter 5: We Almost Missed Our Flight—Three Times!
No one said traveling halfway across the world, especially with a one-year old, was going to be easy. Traffic accidents and last minute diaper bombs don’t help, either.
Part III: ParIs, rosencrans Was rIght about You
Chapter 6: Les Deux Magot in the Rain
The first thing Joe and Talia saw when they walked the stairs up from their metro stop was the green canopy of Les Deux Magot, the famous café Ernest Hemingway talked about in The Sun Also Rises and A Moveable Feast. It was a misty and rainy morning and no one was out. They found their apartment a short walk away, only to find it… locked. They had been awake for 30 hours, the baby was crying, their phones were dead, and Talia was sick. They were so close, but were they ever going to make it?
Chapter 7: Don’t Land in Paris on a Sunday
After borrowing a merciful stranger’s cell phone, they had managed to get a hold of their landlord and were officially living in Paris. How do you feed yourself when it’s Sunday and all the stores are closed?
Chapter 8: Walking to the Louvre
On their first walk in Paris, Talia and Joe somehow managed to stumble upon Ponte des Arts bridge and the Louvre right at sunset. It was beautiful. But Talia’s stomach issues nearly managed to ruin everything.
Chapter 9: How to Make Friends with a Frenchman
During their two months in Paris, Joe and Talia managed to make a lot of friends—French, English, fellow Americans. However, they never were able to make friends with a Parisian. In fact, none of their friends had managed to make any Parisian friends either, even the ones who were French! Why was it so hard to make friends with a Parisian? Joe gets advice from a stranger, David Lebovitz, and Ernest Hemingway on how to make Parisian friends.
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Goodbye Paris Book Proposal Overview
Part Iv: ParIs, MInd If I tILt on Your WIndMILL?
Chapter 10: Choose an Adventure in Paris
What is a crowdsourced memoir? Before Joe and Talia left for Paris, hundreds of people had created challenges for them to complete while in the city. They picked the best ones and during their stay, tried to finish as many as they could. Things got a little crazy.
Chapter 11: So You Need Directions in Paris?
It would be putting it nicely to say Paris has a reputation amongst Americans for being a fairly unfriendly place. What do you do if you’re lost in Paris and need help? Here’s what Joe and Talia learned about asking for directions in French.
Chapter 12: Chillin’ with Jim Morrison at Pére Lachaise Cemetery
Pére Lachaise cemetery is one of the top attractions in Paris, and Joe and Talia had been challenged to make a tour of Paris’ most famous dead celebrities, including the lipstick covered tomb of Oscar Wilde, the grave of Hemingway’s mentor, Gertrude Stein (and her gay lover), and, of course, Jim Morrison’s fenced off tombstone, surrounded by morose, dreadlocked fans.
Chapter 13: Underneath Paris, Part I: Jean Val Jean’s Sewer
In Les Miserables, our hero Jean Val Jean saves his foster-daughter’s beau by dragging him through Paris’ sewer system. On a dare, Joe tracked his steps. And it was just as dark and smelly as you can imagine.
Chapter 14: Underneath Paris, Part II: The Empire of the Dead
The bones of six million people are buried in a series of caves below Paris known as the Catacombs. Above the entrance to the ossuary is carved, “Arrête! C’est ici l’empire de la Mort. Stop! Here lies the Empire of the Dead.” Joe was beginning to wonder why he signed up for this project.
Chapter 15: Underneath Paris, Part III: The Best Cave Restaurant in Paris
Two levels below ground is the best restaurant in a cave in Paris. The celebrated Spring restaurant, run by Daniel Rose. It wasn’t easy to get a reservation on short notice (or a baby sitter), but Talia and Joe got to experience the most expensive meal of their lives there. It was so good they had to come back a month later.
Chapter 16: The Open Air Markets and Tiny Kitchens of Paris
To satiate her love of fine cuisine and French cooking, Talia went on a tour of the open air
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Goodbye Paris Book Proposal Overview
markets with a private chef. Joe was the real winner, since he got to eat the leftovers.
Chapter 17: Painting in the Luxembourg Gardens
The challenge: to create a painting and then sell it on the street in Paris. To help, Joe enlisted artist and author Pauline Fraisse who took him to paint in the Luxembourg Gardens.
Chapter 18: French Onion Soup at Les Halles
Joe and Talia were challenged to eat french onion soup at the quintessential Parisian market, Les Halles. Unfortunately, Les Halles closed thirty years ago. They found the next best thing though.
Chapter 19: Shadow a Street Performer for €1,000
It sounded like the perfect adventure, shadow a street performer outside of Notre Dame for the day. Then, take over and perform in front of the crowd. Unfortunately, there actually aren’t as many street performers as the Hunchback of Notre Dame would lead us to believe, and the one that Joe found wanted €1,000 for the honor of interviewing him.
Chapter 20: Singing in the Rain Under the Arc de Triomphe
On one of their last days in Paris, Joe accepts the challenge to perform his best rendition of “Singing in the Rain” underneath the Arc de Triomphe. He even gets three backup dancers: Grandma, his mom, and Mars Bars!
Chapter 21: 10 Museums (plus 1)
The adventure was simple, go to ten museums and write about your feelings after visiting each one. It took all two months to do it, but Joe and Talia accomplished the challenge, throwing in an extra museum just for good measure.
Chapter 22: Rubbing Off Romance
Paris is the city of romance, and Talia and Joe were about to learn the secrets of love from the French.
Chapter 23: Paris from the Perspective of a One Year Old
“What does Paris look like from a one-year old’s perspective?” one reader wanted to know. Mars Bars shares his thoughts.
Chapter 24: The Lock that Broke Ponte des Artes’ Back
A few months after Joe and Talia left Paris, the Ponte des Artes bridge collapsed. The culprit was
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Goodbye Paris Book Proposal Overview
the millions of brass locks put there by tourists. Was it Joe and Talia’s love-lock that broke Ponte des Artes’ back?
Chapter 25: Hemingway’s Favorite Bar
It’s no surprise that Hemingway had a lot of bars that he liked in Paris. Joe walked in Hemingway’s footsteps and went to them.
Chapter 26: A Stranger in a Café
“Have a conversation with a stranger in a café,” read the challenge. With a cute infant, meeting strangers wasn’t hard at all.
Chapter 27: Underneath Paris, Part IV: My Night 180 Feet Below Paris
There are over 1,000 miles of caves, abandoned quarries and catacombs underneath the streets of Paris, and Giles Thomas has walked nearly every mile. Featured in National Geographic, the Wall Street Journal, and the New York Times, Thomas is one of the top experts in the world on the caves of Paris, and by chance, Joe got his email address. This chapter is about Joe’s five hour journey into the illegal City of Darkness below Paris, and the unusual things he found there.
Part v: goodbYe, ParIs
Chapter 28: Suicide Watch
What started as just another adventure, shadow a French baker, turned into a suicide watch as a new friend overdosed on pills. This was the adventure Joe and Talia never signed up for, and yet what happened next was one of their best experiences in Paris.
Chapter 29: Goodbye, Paris
It was 1:30 am, and Joe had just gotten out of a rowdy writer’s group on the other side of town. The metro was closed, and so he rented a velib bike and rode through the city. ““Goodbye, Notre Dame,” he said as he rode past. “Goodbye, Louvre. Goodbye, Seine. Goodbye, Paris.”
Chapter 30: Grandma in Paris
On their last few days in Paris, Grandma arrived, along with her fiancé, and Joe’s parents. The resulting three days were exactly how you’d expect: ridiculous.
ePILogue: fLorence, roMe, and grandMa’s ruIned WeddIng
Paris was over. They were off to Florence and Rome, getting shown around Florence by Michaelangelo’s tenants’ great-granddaughter, watching the exploding cart on Easter, sipping
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Goodbye Paris Book Proposal Overview
machiattos in the most beautiful coffee shop in the world, getting drunk and spilling secrets with Grandma in Rome, and Grandma’s “ruined” wedding.
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Goodbye Paris Book Proposal Overview
The skulls and bones at Les Catacombs de Paris, where over six million unidentified Parisians are burried. Joe visited both the official and “illegal” Catacombs, deep in huge network of caves below Paris.
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Goodbye Paris Book Proposal Overview
Joe and Talia lived just five minutes from The Luxembourg Gardens, one of Paris’ most beautiful parks. Old men played crowded around chess tables and the sandboxes were once played in by “Bumby,” Ernest Hemingway’s oldest son, when the Hemingways lived in Paris. The Luxembourg Palace was once home to Marie de Medici, Queen of France, and is now the meeting place of the French Senate. More importantly, though, just nextdoor was Angelina’s, the site of the best hot chocolate in Paris.
Yum! Chocolate. This picture was taken at Europain, the premiere baking and candymaking exposition in Europe, which Joe got to visit acting as “the press.”
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Goodbye Paris Book Proposal Overview
saMPLe chaPter I
Blame Grandma for this entire thing.
In three months, Grandma is getting married in Florence. She’s 85 and she’s engaged to a 75
year old retired prison electrician.
The difference in their age once got me in trouble. For the first six years of their romantic
relationship, Grandma didn’t tell her boyfriend how old she was, and while he was aware that
she was older than him, Grandma kept the fact that she was babysitting when he was a baby a
carefully guarded secret.
And who can blame her?
As precarious as dating is in your eighties (your nursing home or mine?), why make it harder
by revealing you’re a decade older than your significant other.
Unfortunately, I didn’t think of the benefits of opacity when Grandma’s boyfriend cornered
me at party a few years ago.
“So Joe. Tell me,” he said, placing his hand comfortingly above my elbow, “how old is your
grandmother?”
I normally wouldn’t have the faintest idea—birthdays and ages are not my area—but the
heavens must have wanted to bring some transparency to Grandma’s relationship because the
answer came to me immediately.
“She’s 82, I believe.”
He nodded, smiled, and said nothing more. It wasn’t until Grandma came up to me red-
faced and yelling that I realized what a victory it was for him.
“Joe! You told him how old I am?!” she said. “That was supposed to be a secret!” She was
very annoyed.
“Grandma you’ve been dating like six years! How have you not told him?”
“Because it’s private. I can’t believe you!”
Grandma is quite wild. At my cousin’s graduation party, she found a bottle of Patron and
did shots with the twenty-somethings, then cornered my mother and regaled her with details
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Goodbye Paris Book Proposal Overview
about… well, I would tell you but my mother said I wasn’t allowed to.
Anyway, after years of “living in sin,” Grandma finally persuaded her boyfriend to make an
“honest-enough” woman out of her, and last year they got engaged. I don’t know if they ever
intended to get married, but when the prospect of going to Florence came up, we put a glass of
wine in Grandma’s hand and tried to convince her to make it a destination wedding.
“It’ll be fun. It doesn’t even have to be a real wedding. We’ll get a villa and Uncle Steve will
get ordained online and marry you himself. It’ll be a big party.”
Grandma loves a party. She said yes, of course.
We got a villa a few miles outside of the city—some Medici’s cousin’s old place, apparently—
and split it 43 ways with my extended family.
Talia, Mars Bars, and I are going to be sleeping in the gazebo, I understand.
It’s supposed to be beautiful and drafty and the advertisement says you can see the Duomo
from the second floor window.
We paid the deposit, bought the plane tickets, purchased a suitcase’s worth of Rick Steves’
guidebooks, and dreamed of gelato.
Florence, here we come.
Grandma, you better not get cold feet.
saMPLe chaPter II
When you spend three grand on plane tickets to Europe for your eighty-five year old
Grandma’s destination wedding, you might as well spread the cost out and make it a longer visit.
Also, since I don’t have a real job I thought, “Now is finally time to do the Tim Ferriss thing and
live abroad!”
Unfortunately, as hard as it is to believe, Talia isn’t always keen on the idea of traveling to
a foreign country with a bad exchange rate where we don’t know anyone with a one-year old
infant. Her reasoning baffles me.
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Goodbye Paris Book Proposal Overview
However, since I wanted my wife to agree to this crazy adventure, I chose Paris on the slim
probability that her favorite city would sway her to my side.
The secret to convincing your wife of a crazy idea is to let her convince herself.
“That’s a crazy idea!” she said when I first suggested Paris. “What about my sister’s wedding?
What about Mars Bars? What about my job? What about the potted plants?”
“The plants are dead. They adore babies into France. You can quit your job. And we’ll be
back in time for your sister’s wedding. Let’s go to Paris.”
“I just think it’s a bad plan. Why can’t we just move to Atlanta? This seems like just another
of your ideas.”
A few days later, though, we were at a party and she brought up Paris on her own.
“How long do you think you’ll stay in XXXXX?” someone asked about XXXXX, the
painfully small town at the foothills of the Appalachians where we live. Our town is most
famous for being the largest producer of chickens in the country. I love the trees and the hills,
but there’s only so many times you can get stuck behind a semi-truck towering with cages filled
with thousands of pitiful chickens heading to the slaughterhouse. Worse than the smell is the
knowledge you’re looking at tonight’s dinner.
“We’re actually planning on going to Paris for a few months,” said my darling wife. This
might have knocked me to the floor if it hadn’t already happened so many times in our happy
marriage.
“Paris? Why Paris?” someone asked.
“Well, our plants are dead. I want to quit my job. And my sister isn’t getting married until
June. Plus, I understand they adore babies in Paris.”
“Why not, then?” someone said encouragingly.
“Exactly,” I said, kissing my bride on the forehead. “Why not?”
Were we actually going to Paris?
Or did we concoct the whole plan as an excuse to brag at parties? Who knows? But the
one thing that saved our Paris trip from good intentions and no follow through was Grandma.
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Goodbye Paris Book Proposal Overview
Grandma’s nuptials were pending and somehow we had to make it to Europe.
There’s nothing like an octogenarian’s destination wedding to force your hand into a half-
baked excursion, and so in January less than two months before we had planned to depart, and
with much groaning, rolling in ashes, and tearing of robes, we finally purchased our plane tickets
and were immediately bankrupt.
Bankrupt, yes, but going to Paris.
We squealed in joy at the thought of Paris: the Louvre! Notre Dame! croissants! cafés!
thousands of cafés! and those frowning, seductive French! What an adventure! Then, we
remembered the state of our finances and fell into depression once more.
For better or worse, it was set: Florence by way of Paris. Bliss by way of Bankruptcy.
saMPLe chaPter III
When flying to Paris, do not drop your phone into the toilet moments before you leave
the house for the airport. Do not do this when flying to any country for that matter. There are
certainly other granules of wisdom you can shake from this story, but at the top of the list is to
keep your phone far away from any body of water. Especially, toilet water.
Of all the moments to drop your phone in the toilet, three minutes before you leave for the
airport to fly away on a two month trip to Europe is certainly the worst moment.
Of course, the best advice always comes after the fact. Just moments before we were
supposed to leave for the airport to Paris, Talia dropped her iPhone in the toilet. The phone had
been in her pocket and when she bent down to pick up Mars Bars, it slipped out and plopped
into the toilet bowl.
She shoved the baby into my arms while she retrieved her phone. When she came out to the
car her phone was in a bag filled with rice to soak up the toilet water.
“Good news,” she said, “at least we’ll have rice in Paris.”
I informed her that we certainly would not be having the rice her fecal-bacteria-covered
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Goodbye Paris Book Proposal Overview
phone was currently soaking in.
Later, after we picked up our friends Hope and Bethany who were seeing us off, she found
rice lodged in the charger slot.
“You should use longer grain rice next time,” I said. “Basmati maybe. Less likely to get
stuck.” (Okay, I didn’t actually say that, but I thought it was too funny to leave out. Plus, I’m sure
I did say something equally snarky.)
“Shut up.”
She attempted to dislodge the rice jammed in the phone by blowing hard on the slot. When
that didn’t work, she used the tip of a pen. Still no luck.
Finally, she got the bacteria-infested rice out with a bobby pin.
The drive to the airport was uneventful until we got about two miles from our exit and
traffic began to slow and an ambulance zoomed past us on the left shoulder. Then traffic really
stopped and we found out from our traffic iPhone app that there was a bad accident ahead of
us. Two miles to the airport and we’re going to get stuck for an hour as they clear the freeway?
May it never be! Instead, I veered the car into the next lane and cut across four lanes of
stopped traffic to get off the freeway.
“Where next?” I shouted to Talia, who was frantically pulling up directions on my phone
since hers was out of commission. “I have to turn now. Which way?!”
“Left!” she said. I went left.
“Now what?”
“Right!” she said. This was great. We would make it to the airport on time after all.
“Now where?”
“Straight!”
“Are you sure? It looks like a dead end.”
“Yes, that’s what the map says. Straight!”
Either South Atlanta is not very well mapped or my wife isn’t good at directions (granule of
wisdom #2: it’s always the map’s fault!).
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Goodbye Paris Book Proposal Overview
Straight we went, followed by a shout. Behind us, a security guard was waving us down.
Then, we found ourselves at a dead end of an industrial road.
(Granule of wisdom #3: Even when you want to say, “I told you it wasn’t straight,” don’t
say, “I told you it wasn’t straight.” Instead say, “There’s no one I’d rather get lost with than you,
honey.” And mean it.)
I turned around and drove back toward the security guard who was looking at us like we
were crazy.
“Sorry! We’re lost,” said Talia. “We’re trying to get to the airport.”
“The airport?!” she said, and looked to be thinking, “Then what the f*^& are you doing
here?” She had a round face and her forehead was covered by a black beanie.
“Yeah. 85 is blocked,” I said. “There’s an accident.”
“Can you give us directions?” said Talia. The woman’s expression shifted to a stern,
contemplating look, which lasted several long seconds, long enough for us to notice the three
young men with dreads and baggy clothes and hoodies and to realize we were in the worst part
of town and to wish we hadn’t gotten off the freeway at all.
Then, like a breaking wave of inspiration, our new friend’s expression became conspiratorial.
“I’ll tell you what you’re going to do,” she said as if she was letting us in on a secret to untold
wealth and happiness.
I honestly have no idea what directions she gave. I couldn’t understand a word of it, she
spoke with such a thick drawl, but apparently they were correct because Bethany repeated them
back to me as I drove and we did end up making it to the airport.
We were at the airport! Next stop, Paris! Hope gave us a giant, humiliating balloon that said,
“Bon voyage! We’ll miss you!” and made us walk through the airport with it (I popped it and
threw it away as soon as I could—sorry Hope). We checked into our flight, made it through
security, and then headed for our airline’s VIP lounge.
Talia, who has a great eye for deals for luxury experiences, had found tickets to the VIP
lounge on eBay for $15 each, a good deal considering we got lunch and two drinks for free and
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Goodbye Paris Book Proposal Overview
Mars Bars got to crawl around on the outdoor terrace and look at the airplanes.
“We should go soon,” said Talia.
“We’ll be fine,” I said. “Our flight doesn’t leave for another hour and a half.”
I was changing Mars Bars’ diaper in the bathroom when I heard something over the
intercom that almost ruined our day, if not the entire trip.
“Last call for flight 1098 to Paris. All passengers of flight 1098 to Paris please head to Gate
F10.”
“S*&t.” I said (earmuffs, Mars Bars).
(Granule of wisdom #4: You really shouldn’t cuss around your child, but if you do, just
make sure to do it before he’s a year old. It doesn’t count then.)
I grabbed Mars Bars and we speed walked for the gate. There was Talia waiting for me, a
look of terror upon her face.
“You were right,” I said.
Talia just looked at me. She was clearly following granule of wisdom #3. (Where do you
think I learned them?)
We speed walked out of the club and down the stairs and then ran the last of the way to the
gate, with Mars Bars bouncing from my navel to my ears, and Talia with her arms full of strollers
and diaper bags and suitcases.
“Buntings,” said the gate attendant.
“Yes! Are we too late?”
“No, you just made it.”
“Thank God!”
We boarded the plane and found out we had bulkhead seating and Mars Bars would have
his own little bed. Thank you sweet Jesus! The people sitting next to us looked at our baby with
alarm—“So this is what I have to look forward to for the next eight hours?” Which proved to be
needless.
We sat down breathlessly, they closed the plane’s doors, and Mars Bars immediately fell
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Goodbye Paris Book Proposal Overview
asleep.
Bon voyage! We’ll message you when we get to Paris. But not from Talia’s phone. Because
she dropped it in the toilet.
saMPLe chaPter Iv
It was a sunny spring morning and we walked through the Luxembourg Gardens and down
Rue Saint Michel on the way to the Catacombs. Caroline was visiting from the States, and when
we got to the entrance to Les Catacombes des Paris, I left her in line to check the information
booth for the cost of tickets and to see if there were any announcements. The tickets were
reasonably priced, but I found a innocent looking printed paper that said the following:
“Due to security problems, half of the ossuary is closed today. We are sorry for the
inconvenience.”
Inconvenience? You should say, “Sorry for the crime against humanity.” You have stolen
half of the empire of the dead from us. And you expect us to say, “We forgive you. It’s just a
little inconvenience?”
Imagine the meters and meters of bones that you are depriving the living of, the cubits of
clavicles, the metric tons of skulls. Paris, you call yourself a democracy? What rights do the
people have if not to their own dead?
I returned to the back of the line barely containing my rage. But then Caroline went to Paul’s
down the block and brought back two croissants aux amandes (almond croissants!), and the
soft crispiness of the pastry, the layered sweetness of the filling, the crunch of the thinly sliced
almonds on top, and the blissful sensations they produced brought me once again under the
subjugation of the City of Paris.
Paris, I love you, even though you deny me the dead.
The line to the crypts was long, and as we waited, we heard languages from a dozen different
countries. There were Germans! Brits! Americans! Italians! All waiting in line to see the bones of
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Goodbye Paris Book Proposal Overview
six million of Paris’ dead.
The one group not in attendance, though, were those from the continent of Asia. Neither
Indian nor Chinese nor Japanese tourists were present, people groups that generally appear in
force in the City of Light but were surprisingly absent to the City of Darkness.
Perhaps their absence could be explained by the fact that these were not their dead,
these would not be their ancestors to whom they would be paying their respects. Or perhaps
superstition or religious sensibility warded them away from the remnants of death. On the other
hand, perhaps it was something far less deep, simply the fact that they don’t have the Bollywood,
Shanghai, or Tokyo equivalent to the Indiana Jones’ movies to heighten their appreciation for the
netherworlds of civilization.
Whatever the explanation, they were missing a rare opportunity to descend into the crypt
and take selfies with skulls to then post on Facebook later, saying, “Hey look at this! This is me
in 500 years!”
Finally, it was our turn to go down into the darkness. We began to walk down the spiral
staircase... one, two, three... eleven... eighteen, I lost count at 23 steps. I later read that there are
only 132 steps that take you down a measly 66 feet and felt embarrassed with myself, but at the
time I wondered if the staircase would ever end.
We began walking through the dark quarries toward the ossuary. There are hundreds of
miles of caves below Paris, most of which are ancient limestone quarries dug by earlier residents
of Paris—from the Romans to Louis XVI. The tan stone blocks of the Louvre, Notre Dame,
and most of the other buildings of Paris were taken from these pits.
Unfortunately, when you have gaping holes deep below the earth, sometimes they cave in.
The first cave in occurred in 1774, and they continued every twenty years or so for centuries.
How would you like to be eating dinner with your family in 18th century Paris when your
house collapses below you, burying you and your children alive?
The caves below Paris still exist today. All entrances within the City of Paris have been
sealed by the police, but every once in a while, a landlord will be renovating and break into some
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Goodbye Paris Book Proposal Overview
forgotten cave below the city.
The way to the ossuary is long and twisting. Barred iron gates block your way to offshoot
caves and if you shine your flashlight through the gates you can’t see the end of the tunnel. The
floor is covered with pebbles and limestone dust coats your shoes. You walk along, feeling all but
alone, until some Italian tourist comes hustling from behind and passes you.
Time goes slowly below ground, and it feels like several hours before you stumble upon a
sculpture carved out of the rock. The sculptures were by a quarryman named Décure, who in
the 18th century carved them after his shifts.
The sculpture in the image above is of the prison at Port-Mahon in Spain where he was held
captive by the English after fighting for Louis XV. The whole sculpture was only about two feet
high, but the detail is stunning, and of course, it’s a strange surprise to find art like this in the
catacombs.
Décure himself fell victim to his own vanity. While carving a staircase to allow people to see
his art, he caused the cave in that killed him.
We walked on, following a black line painted on crudely on the ceiling as a guide, the black
line to death’s home.
Finally, we reached the ossuary. The sign above the door says, “Come no further! You are
entering the Empire of the Dead.” You step through the portal.
There were bones on either side. The walls were lined with bones and if you shine a light to
the back of the cave you could see splintered bones as far back as 28 meters.
“Can you actually believe what you’re seeing?” said a British woman to her young son.
“Yeah, mum, I can.”
“I can’t.”
“Dead boooones,” he said with glee. Then later, “There are 99 of these tracts!”
A girl said, pointing to a skull that was cracked and turned upside down, half-scared, half-
thrilled, “Oh my GOD, someone died in the most horrible way!”
“How so?”
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Goodbye Paris Book Proposal Overview
“Upside down!”
Some of the skulls get caked in the sediment in the quarry. I saw a few covered in small
crystals that sparkled in the occasional light. One skull on the corner of a lower level has bullet
holes in the back of the head. An execution, we wonder?
The crypt doesn’t smell like decay or death. To me, it smelled like floral perfume, but that
may have been the American woman walking in front of me.
Finally, we follow the black line out of the ossuary, down the abandoned quarries and to the
spiral staircase leading back to the City of Light. We are in a rush to get back to the surface and
away from all these skulls, but as soon as we make it onto the staircase, we begin to slow, our
quads begin to burn, our breath comes slow.
It’s easy to descend into the land of the dead but coming back to life is a lot of work!
The staircase spirals on forever. I lose track of how many steps I’ve taken and the boy
behind me who was annoyingly counting each step has lost his breath and taken a break. I trudge
on, alone, silently. And then, I am no longer in a stone encased tomb but a drywall room, lit by
wonderfully boring halogen lamps. The door is open and Paris is just outside. I exit and breath in
the air... a lot of air because I’m pretty out of breath from the climb, and when we leave, I don’t
look back at the catacombs or think of the darkness or death anymore for the rest of the day.