How to Die in Paris: A Memoir

by Naturi Thomas

How to Die in Paris is an edgy, poetic, often darkly comic, memoir of a young middle-class black woman who escapes a tortured past in New York to pursue a new life in Europe—only to find herself broke, desperate, and contemplating suicide on the streets of Paris.  Penniless, scared, and hoping for rescue, Thomas turns to a series of unlikely male an impoverished Italian who exposes her to the reality of immigrant struggle, a fast-talking squatter who lures her into Paris’s street youth culture, and a beautiful Tunisian who takes her home . . . only to introduce her to a world of pain. Each encounter awakens in her memories from her childhood-memories of the abuse and racism she experienced at the hands of her mother—and forces her to confront the darkness in her past, even as she struggles to survive in the present. Though the trials she faces in Paris are often harrowing, Thomas is anything but self-pitying, often culling humor from gritty moments, and she finds goodness in the small blessings that come her a library that offers warmth and escape, a sandwich abandoned in a phone booth, the generosity of strangers, and especially, the wonder of Paris itself.  Ultimately, being homeless in the City of Light frees her of the denial and defenses that have been holding her back all her life-revealing a broader world too beautiful to leave.

Genres: Biography, Memoir

272 pages, Paperback

First published November 22, 2011

About the author

Naturi Thomas currently lives in London, home of awesome pubs, soggy weather and, compared to New York, a shockingly clean subway system. She's currently putting the finishing touches on both a novel and a prequel to '...Paris'

Reviews

[Monica · Rating 4 out of 5]

Read this one in one day. This is a powerful book.

I love travel memoirs, especially when there's some struggle involved. At first I thought this might be a mixed race/African-American girl from Newark's version of Down and Out in Paris and London, but it goes a bit deeper than that. I found myself sobbing by the end of it.

Not sure why the editorial review here on Goodreads describes the author as middle-class, though. Somehow I think growing up in a small apartment in Newark, NJ with a father who often lost his job, couldn't pay the bills, and who never spent more than $200 for a used car does not make me think middle-class.

[stacia · Rating 3 out of 5]

First things first: Naturi Thomas is a wonderful writer. Her imagery's imaginative. She punctuates hardship with wit. And her work makes for a quick read.

But--and I always hesitate to make this admission with memoir, because it's hard to critique content without critiquing a real person's *life*--I found myself annoyed and detached and bordering on unsympathetic through most of the narrative. Thomas' account of entering Paris with about 5 euros (that quickly dwindle to 53 "cent"(?)), then randomly following a series of shady men to their various places of squattership and residence, seemed far too reckless for me to imagine. She opens by discussing her "great" and varied friends, all of whom were encouraging of her trip abroad and of her keeping in touch while she was there. Why not bum a few euros off strangers to use cafe internet and ask her friends for a loan? Why immediately jump to greasy, near-homeless men who expect sex in exchange for a shower or sandwich?

Ostensibly, Thomas is this fatalistic because she "wants to kill herself" (hence the title), but I never bought that she wanted to die. I guess this was supposed to be the running joke of the whole thing; she often quips about how halfhearted her suicide plans/attempts are. And it isn't until a major confessional twist in the third act that I even understood why she'd want to die. She describes her family life as both verbally abusive and whimsical, but without the context of the third act, I didn't understand her at all.

The saving grace is that this confession does make all the difference in my ability to accept everything that preceded it, to hold deep sympathy for Thomas (a really great imagined trip to Paris with her toddler-self drove that sympathy home), and to understand Thomas' reckless, fatalistic attitude.

I didn't like having to wait that long, didn't like that there was no allusion to this secret earlier in the text (unless I missed it), and didn't like having to rethink the entire nightmarish travelogue in light of it. But as a storytelling choice--and a psychological one--I get why it was withheld in the book and suppressed in life.

All in all, I'd recommend this--many, many people already are--but with the caveat that if you're like me (put off by the events that occur during most of work), hang in there; it's likely you'll really "get it" in the end.

[Kim · Rating 1 out of 5]

Gawd... Bored me to death. A whiny memoir about self-inflicted misery.

[Adriane Devries · Rating 5 out of 5]

“When one realizes his life is worthless, he either commits suicide or travels.” –Edward Dahlberg, Reasons of the Heart (On Futility)

As a young woman, Naturi Thomas decides life is not worth living, at least not life as she knows it. She decides to get away from her home in New York City to the City of Light. Perhaps she will find a way to die there, but she is not sure how she will do it. She attempts to starve herself, but her hunger makes her a coward. She thinks she might allow the cold, wet elements to do her in, but her traitorous body seizes opportunities to stay warm with handsome strangers. As she struggles on the fence of life or death, her turbulent past continues to haunt her, while a nagging hope urges her to press on no matter how ragged her weary feet become. Ultimately, her choice to die in the city most known for fullness of life, beauty, adventure, romance, and glamour, may be a reflection of a deeper joie de vivre that cannot be so easily dissuaded. Perhaps behind every death wish is a wish for something far grander than we can imagine, but that our inner wisdom knows exists, somewhere and somehow. Sometimes, it takes diving into the depths in order to discover we seek the Light. Thomas’ memoir is beautifully written, dreadfully honest, and an exhortation to not only survive, but to thrive.

“But I have to believe everything happens for a reason. And that includes the way we suffer, and the lessons that suffering imparts to us.” –Naturi Thomas

[Rose · Rating 4 out of 5]

A cautionary tale of how not to go to Paris. A thirty-year-old woman without much of a future runs away to Europe to escape her problems. After being fired from a translation position in Rome, she decides to go to Paris because she wants to see it before she kills herself. She spends several days being homeless in Paris, goes home with more than one strange man and eventually works her problems.

[Rachel]

This book was highlighted in Shelf Awareness, described as "astonishing."

[Patti · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is one of the most powerful books I've read in ages. It's a deep and painful memoir that left me with a new view of life...

[Valerie · Rating 2 out of 5]

Some hilarious lines.

[Bethspin · Rating 2 out of 5]

This girl never wanted to kill herself.