PARIS BLUE
A MEMOIR OF FIRST LOVE
by Julie Skolnik
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“Not every true story is like a good novel, but this one is. Not every memoir of first love has a satisfying ending, but this one does. The confluence of first love with becoming an artist makes this memoir special.”
— Bestselling author John Irving
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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:
From acclaimed concert flutist and the artistic director of Mistral Music comes an inspirational and heartfelt memoir about young love, heartache, and the role of memory in our lives. Set against a magical backdrop of classical music and Paris, Paris Blue: A Memoir of First Love (Koehler Books) is a true fairy-tale memoir with a dark underbelly about the tenacious grip of first love.
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PARIS, 1976: Twenty-year-old American student Julie Scolnik arrives in the City of Light to study the flute when, from across a sea of faces in the chorus of the Orchestre de Paris, she is drawn to Luc, a striking (married) French lawyer in the bass section. This deeply moving tale of an ebullient young American and a reserved Frenchman will transport readers to the cafés, streets, and concert halls of Paris in the late seventies, and, spanning three decades, evolves from deep romance to sudden heartbreak, and finally to a lifelong quest for answers to release hidden immutable grief. A deeply felt, bittersweet reflection on how youthful passion changes you and clings to you forever, this is a story that has embedded itself in Julie’s heart and mind for forty years. It is time to share it. |
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Letters play a fundamental role in the memoir, each chapter beginning with a letter that Luc has sent during their separation, and each letter foreshadowing what is to follow. Time moves quickly in the final chapters, and Scolnik’s self-discovery about the role of memory in our lives brings satisfying closure to the story. John Irving wrote of the ending: “It’s a good story, but what sets it apart is the resolution at the end.”
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Paris Blue: A Memoir of First Love
was released in Hardcover, Trade Paper, and eBook and is available at bookstores nationwide and online retailers such as Amazon and Barnes & Noble.
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Music plays a fundamental role in the story, certain pieces becoming virtual characters in the book. Access a playlist featuring many of the pieces that are mentioned and footnoted in the memoir. |
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Julie Scolnik is a concert flutist and artistic director of Mistral Music, a chamber music series she founded in 1997 that has brought her accolades for the high caliber of her artists, her imaginative programming, and the personal rapport she establishes with her audiences. She lives in Boston with her husband, physicist Michael Brower, and their two cats, Daphne and Chloë. They have two adult children, Sophie and Sasha Scolnik-Brower, also musicians.
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New England Book Festival winner in Memoir category
Independent Press Awards: Distinguished Favorite in Memoir
Literary Titan Silver Medal Award
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“Paris Blue, Julie Scolnik’s memoir of first love in Paris, is written with the tender romanticism of Wordsworth and the devastating realism of Flaubert. Her lyrical writing about music transforms these discordant halves into a compelling whole, creating a dazzling love letter to a life lived in music.”
—Linda Katherine Cutting, author of Memory Slips
“Julie Scolnik’s page-turner of a memoir captures with beauty and rare insight the power of music, words, and Paris to drive love to madness.
To read her pitch perfect writing is to relive the exhilarations and vulnerabilities of one’s twenties.”
— Judith Coffin, author of Sex, Love, and Letters:
Writing Simone de Beauvoir
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Press copies/ media inquiries
Milina Barry
Milina Barry PR
212.420.0200
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