Rendezvous Eighteenth
Ricky
Jenks is a thoroughly average African-American man from a family of
bourgeois over-achievers. He moves to Paris to flee the humiliation of
having been stood up at his wedding coupled with the discovery that his
bride-to-be ran off with his brilliantly successful cousin, Cassius
Washington. He finds his niche as a piano player in a run-of-the-mill
crêperie and piano bar on the place du Tertre, and falls in love with a
beautiful Muslim woman in whom he encounters a curious mix of
traditional faith and feminist ideals. Jenks lives on rue des Martyrs
across the street from a transvestite whore house and a nursing home,
buys his bread at place des Abbesses, and visits his girlfriend Fatima
in her middle-class apartment and surroundings on rue de Trétaigne.Jenks
is the protagonist of Jake Lamar’s latest novel, Rendezvous Eighteenth
(St. Martin’s Minotaur, 2003). This is the first novel for which Lamar
has used the city of Paris as a backdrop, and the first in which he has
so vividly portrayed an area that he calls home – the 18th
arrondissement.
Born in the
Bronx, New York, Lamar describes himself as a "real city boy". He loves
the 18th because of its "crusty, but friendly" people, and thinks of
Montmartre as the "Greenwich Village of Paris". In Rendezvous
Eighteenth, he wanted to write about a part of Paris that "doesn’t get
much attention these days…a vibrant, multicultural Paris where people
of different classes and convictions live in eccentric coexistence."
Lamar said that he wanted to "get away from the yuppified vision of
Paris that Americans usually get and give the city back to the
riff-raff."
Lamar skillfully
weaves the tale of Jenks’ life in the 18th arrondissement with
flashbacks from his past, both in Paris and the U.S. The plot begins to
thicken when cousin "Cash" telephones Jenks from out of the blue,
saying that he is in town and that he desperately needs Jenks’ help.
The suspense mounts when Jenks returns home after work and discovers a
murdered transvestite in the lobby of his apartment building.
In
Rendezvous Eighteenth, readers accompany Jenks all around the 18th – to
the Mairie where he is questioned by the police, to the market at rue
du Poteau and rue Duhesme where Fatima does her shopping, to the parvis
of Sacré Coeur where his friend Valitsa the Serb works as a street
mime, and to the tony avenue Junot where Cash’s wife Serena takes up
temporary residence. The action also unfolds at the corner of rue
Poulet and rue des Poissonniers, where Jenks encounters his cousin Cash
many years after the horrible experience of being jilted; at the square
Roland Dorgelès (on the corner of rue des Saules and rue
Saint-Vincent), which Jenks and Fatima consider "their carrefour"; and
in the Goutte d’Or, where the answer to the mystery of the murdered
transvestite finally unfolds.
Lamar’s
love of the 18th shines through in his careful descriptions of the
various areas in which he sets his narrative. A 10-year resident of
Paris, he has spent nine of these years in Montmartre, on the hill
overlooking the city. His first apartment in the area was on the rue
des Martyrs, and his second was a studio on the rue du Mont Cenis. He
uses this studio as his workplace now, and he and his wife share a home
near the Mairie, where they were married.
Lamar
had harboured a desire to visit Paris since the age of 13, after
reading James Baldwin’s Go Tell It on the Mountain. But 19 years would
pass before he would realize this dream. After resigning from the
position of associate editor and staff writer at Time Magazine in 1989,
he moved to the Midwest and wrote his memoir Bourgeois Blues (Simon and
Schuster, 1991), in which he explored his relationship with his father.
The compulsion to write had taken over his life, yet he found that he
was barely able to make a living as a novelist.
Then,
a miracle happened! A "cheery stranger" phoned to tell him that he had
been awarded the Lyndhurst Prize, a three-year grant given to writers,
artists and people in community service. This award permitted Lamar to
move to Paris, and he has lived here ever since.
After
concluding a three-book deal with Crown Publishing, Lamar wrote
Rendezvous Eighteenth for Minotaur Books. He is currently at work on
his fifth novel, which promises to bring us more action and adventure
in Paris as he develops a story line for some of the secondary
characters that he introduced in Rendezvous Eighteenth.
Other books by Jake Lamar:
The Last Integrationist (Crown, 1996)
Close to the Bone (Crown, 1999)
If 6 Were 9 (Crown, 2003)
Le Caméléon Noir (French translation of If 6 Were by 9; Payot/Rivages Noir, 2003)
The Last Integrationist (Crown, 1996)
Close to the Bone (Crown, 1999)
If 6 Were 9 (Crown, 2003)
Le Caméléon Noir (French translation of If 6 Were by 9; Payot/Rivages Noir, 2003)
--
Monique Y. Wells is co-owner of Discover Paris! - Personalized Itineraries for Independent Travelers as well as the author of Food for the Soul - A Texas Expatriate Nurtures her Culinary Roots in Paris.
Monique Y. Wells is co-owner of Discover Paris! - Personalized Itineraries for Independent Travelers as well as the author of Food for the Soul - A Texas Expatriate Nurtures her Culinary Roots in Paris.
