Elena Mauli Shapiro
13 Rue Thérèse
(Little, Brown, February 2011)
American academic Trevor Stratton discovers a box full of artifacts from World War I as he settles into his new office in Paris. The pictures, letters, and objects in the box relate to the life of Louise Brunet, a feisty, charming Frenchwoman who lived through both World Wars.
As Trevor examines and documents the relics the box offers up, he begins to imagine the story of Louise Brunet’s life: her love for a cousin who died in the war, her marriage to a man who works for her father, and her attraction to a neighbor in her building at 13 rue Thérèse. The more time he spends with the objects though, the truer his imaginings of Louise’s life become, and the more he notices another alluring Frenchwoman: Josianne, his clerk, who planted the box in his office in the first place, and with whom he finds he is falling in love.
Praise for 13 Rue Thérèse
“Shapiro’s debut, an imaginative, sensual rendering of a Parisian woman’s life… The book is illustrated with photos of the actual objects owned by Shapiro, cleverly used as the novel’s framing device.”
–Publishers Weekly
“A puzzle-novel that gave me the same fizzy satisfaction as completing a Sunday crossword. It will light up your brain and your heart.”
–David Ebershoff, author of the bestseller The 19th Wife
“13 Rue Thérèse is a wildly imaginative, multifaceted, confection of a novel. Like a master magician, Elena Mauli Shapiro gently introduces the beguiling Louise, and asks us to participate in solving her many mysteries. Louise’s story, we are warned, has ensnared many great minds. By the novel’s heady conclusion, we too have fallen captive to this most mischievous and provocative heroine.”
–Maria Semple, author of Today Will Be Different, Where’d You Go Bernadette, and This One is Mine
“When I think of works of fiction set in Paris, I immediately enter a mindset that is ruled by excessive imagination and visually concrete detail; I am reminded of Muriel Barbery’s ‘The Elegance of the Hedgehog’ and Antoine de Saint-Exupéry’s ‘Le Petit Prince.’ Also, Édith Piaf is singing somewhere in the background—as is the Eiffel Tower (my imagination tends to run loudly). Elena Mauli Shapiro’s début novel, ’13, Rue Thérèse,’ combines all these gush-worthy elements.
I must admit that I enjoy the idea of a novel’s intention being evolved through its pages as well as an interactive Web site; the entire process has an elegant weather of its own. One might call it a visual rendering through language, culture, and sensible surprises. I call it a brilliant and tactile method of marketing.”
–The Book Bench, TheNewYorker.com
“Sifting through a deceased person’s mementos, one can only try to piece together a life story. Much of what really happened is gone with the person it happened to. But in this captivating first novel by Bay Area author Elena Mauli Shapiro, who was born and raised in Paris, just such a box holds not only secrets but also the power to uncover them.”
–San Francisco Chronicle
“At turns truly exciting and overflowing with imagination, the novel is full of intriguing characters: Louise’s boring husband, Henri; her talented young piano student, Garance; and her new neighbor, Xavier, to whom she is magnetically drawn… Puzzle-lovers will be curious to check out the book’s online counterpart, in which they can view 3-D versions of the book’s images.”
–Booklist
Elena Mauli Shapiro was born and raised in Paris, France, in an apartment below the real-life Louise Brunet’s. She has a BA from Stanford University in English and French, an MFA in Fiction Writing from Mills College, and an MA in Comparative Literature from UC Davis. This novel was a finalist for the 2009 Bakeless literary prize.