The Little Paris Bookshop

A week passes. Perdu, Max, and Cuneo continue to get to know each other better. Perdu calls home to his parents and to number 27.

One stormy day, Perdu sees a woman jump into the turbulent waters of the river. Cuneo dives into the water to rescue her, and Max and Perdu haul the two back aboard with a life ring. The woman asks them not to call emergency services. Instead, they warm her up inside the boat’s cabin, with Cuneo nursing her most attentively.

They make it to the marina at Cuisery. The woman, Samantha, tells them that she jumped in because she wanted to see what it would feel like to be in the river during a storm, that perhaps “a different way of living” would occur to her (234).

The town of Cuisery is nicknamed “the town of books” because it is a haven for creativity, and almost every business in town is a bookseller, publisher, printer, or bookbinder. When Perdu and his friends arrive, the town is holding a fantasy book convention.

In the morning, Samantha is gone from the boat. The men head into town, looking for food and for clues about the identity of Sanary, the author of Southern Lights. They seek out Samy Le Trequesser, the chairman of the Cuisery business guild.

It turns out that Samantha and Samy Le Trequesser are one and the same. Cuneo invites her to dinner on the boat while Perdu asks her questions about Southern Lights. She turns the questioning into a game, telling him that she will only answer yes/no questions. She empathizes with Max’s writer’s block and asks him to “offer her a new word” when she comes for dinner as a way to get his creativity going (247).

When Cuneo picks up Samy for dinner, she has three packed suitcases with her. Samy intends to travel with them on the boat.

The Lulu and her passengers are nearing Provence. They are very close to Avignon, where Perdu will disembark to rent a car to continue his journey to Manon’s hometown. Samy wants to kiss Cuneo but wants to wait until Perdu solves the mystery of Sanary’s identity. After spending lots of time talking with Samy, Perdu realizes that it was she who wrote his favorite book.

Samy expresses her joy that Perdu uncovered her identity. She thanks him for searching her out and for bringing her and Cuneo together.

In a diary entry dated August 1992, Manon writes while she watches Perdu sleep. She is preparing to leave him in the morning. Manon makes brief reference to “the child,” which is the reader’s first clue that she is pregnant. Manon writes that she has not been taking the painkillers that her doctors prescribe because she doesn’t want to risk any harm to her baby. Manon is conflicted about when and how to tell Perdu about her illness. She writes about her hope to eat the traditional Christmas desserts with her family before dying.

Manon finishes the diary entry, saying that her death will be like walking through big windows into the sunset, that she will become light after she dies so that she can be everywhere.

After sharing dinner on Lulu, Max and Perdu leave the boat to give Samy and Cuneo some privacy. Max and Perdu walk around Avignon, and Max shares some ideas he has for children’s books.

Back aboard the boat, Perdu spends time saying farewell to the books and to Lulu after everyone else is asleep.

Samy gifts Max and Perdu pre-paid cell phones, and Perdu offers the keys to Lulu to Cuneo and Samy “on a permanent loan” (276). They resist such a large gift, but he assures them that he’s ready to move on and will feel glad knowing that the boat and its cats are well cared for.

Max and Perdu set off on land. They rent a car and drive southeast out of Avignon. The landscape strikes Perdu as foreign although Max seems right at home. They stop to ask a tractor driver for directions to the vacation home they’ve rented. The driver is a quick-tongued young woman to whom Max takes an immediate liking.

They are renting a room from Brigitte Bonnet, who serves them local food and wine when they arrive. Perdu is shocked to find that the wine is called Manon, and has a drawing of Manon on its label. The surprise of Manon’s image makes Perdu realize that he’s not ready to visit Manon’s family home yet.

Perdu leaves Max at Brigitte’s farm, where Max plans to write. Perdu wants time alone to heal before seeing Manon’s family and her grave. He drives, without a planned destination, along the southern coast. Perdu finds an especially nice area on the coast and starts to look for a place to stay. The car breaks down before he gets much further, and he realizes that his car has broken down in Sanary-sur-Mer, the town that inspired Samy’s pen name.