Finding Fontainebleau: An American Boy in France

Finding Fontainebleau: An American Boy in France

by Thad Carhart
Finding Fontainebleau: An American Boy in France

Finding Fontainebleau: An American Boy in France

by Thad Carhart

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Overview

Winner of the French Heritage Literary Award

A beguiling memoir of a childhood in 1950s France from the much-admired New York Times bestselling author of The Piano Shop on the Left Bank


"Like the castle, [Carhart's] memoir imaginatively and smoothly integrates multiple influences, styles and whims."The New York Times

                                  
For a young American boy in the 1950s, Fontainebleau was a sight both strange and majestic, home to a continual series of adventures: a different language to learn, weekend visits to nearby Paris, family road trips to Spain and Italy. Then there was the château itself: a sprawling palace once the residence of kings, its grounds the perfect place to play hide-and-seek. The curiosities of the small town and the time with his family as expats left such an impression on him that thirty years later Carhart returned to France with his wife to raise their two children. Touring Fontainebleau again as an adult, he began to appreciate its influence on French style, taste, art, and architecture. Each trip to Fontainebleau introduces him to entirely new aspects of the château's history, enriching his memories and leading him to Patrick Ponsot, the head of the château’s restoration, who becomes Carhart’s guide to the hidden Fontainebleau.
          What emerges is an intimate chronicle of a time and place few have experienced. In warm, precise prose, Carhart reconstructs the wonders of his childhood as an American in postwar France, attending French schools with his brothers and sisters. His firsthand account brings to life nothing less than France in the 1950s, from the parks and museums of Paris to the rigors of French schooling to the vast château of Fontainebleau and its village, built, piece by piece, over many centuries. Finding Fontainebleau is for those captivated by the French way of life, for armchair travelers, and for anyone who has ever fallen in love with a place they want to visit over and over again.

Product Details

ISBN-13: 9780698191617
Publisher: Penguin Publishing Group
Publication date: 05/17/2016
Sold by: Penguin Group
Format: eBook
Pages: 304
File size: 2 MB

About the Author

About The Author
The son of an air force officer, Thad Carhart grew up in a variety of places, including Washington, D.C.; Fontainebleau, France; Minneapolis; Amherst, Massachusetts; and Tokyo. After graduating from Yale, he worked for the State Department as an interpreter. His first book, The Piano Shop on the Left Bank, appeared in 2000, published by Random House. Across the Endless River, a historical novel, came out in 2009 with Doubleday. He lives in Paris.

Reading Group Guide

1. A memoir lies at the heart of Finding Fontainebleau, a story of the author’s life in France in the ’50s. Carhart begins the narrative with his boyhood account of the long prop airplane trip to France, and then the impressions this new place made on him. Are there aspects reminiscent of other stories—fiction or nonfiction—where the reader discovers a new world at the same time as the author? Is the France of sixty years ago more “exotic” than the country we know today? Discuss why that might be the case. 01

2. The Château of Fontainebleau figures prominently as the focus of restoration efforts in the present day. Similar work goes on in almost all countries, but the French have their own approach. How does Carhart’s account set forth the French philosophy of restoration? Are there similarities to how Americans care for their own national treasures?

3. Carhart’s experiences and adventures in France as a boy are always seen against the background of a large family—five children—living immersed in things French. They had no TV, one portable record player, and only French radio. How would things be different in the present day for a big American family living abroad?

4. Finding Fontainebleau gives us accounts of many of the kings and queens who lived at Fontainebleau and built its many parts. What traditions did they share that made their projects at Fontainebleau distinctive? Now that the monarchy is a thing of the past, how does the French Republic square its democratic ideals with the safeguarding of France’s oldest royal residence?

5. Carhart tells us how the Château has been threatened with ruin several times over its long history, most recently during the German occupation of France during World War II. How would its loss diminish the cultural inheritance of France in particular, and of Western civilization in general? Why is its survival important?

6. Discuss the ways in which Carhart’s account of his upbringing in Fontainebleau of the ’50s differed from the ways he and his wife raised their own children in Paris in the ’90s. What similarities—and differences—struck you? 01

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