Dark humor, existential angst and a search for meaning can be found within these short stories set in the bars, bedrooms and cafes of Paris.
Paris may be the city of love, but not all love stories come with a happy ending. The Paris Quartet: Short Stories For the End of the World features four interconnected tales set in the City of Light. This is a first date gone wrong, a man who feels isolated and trapped in a city of illusion, a depressed, married man who embarks on an affair because it seems pointless not to, and a family gathering at which the guests try to ignore an impending horrific fate.
The Paris Quartet: Short Stories For the End of the World is also available in the collection, All of Us With Our Pointless Worries and Inconsequential Dramas. For mature readers.
Excerpts
"Being here in this apartment is my escape, if only for a short while, and I only realize this tonight as I am welcomed through the door. It's an escape from the outside world, from the everyday drudgery of Paris. It's not a real escape in the long-term sense, but when I enter this apartment, all I have to do is drink vodka, laugh, talk and fuck, and for a night my worries disappear. No one knows I'm here and no one can find me. My mind is free from everything that I cannot stop thinking about outside of this apartment, and that is my escape. In this apartment, the outside doesn't exist and the clock stops ticking." - Anywhere But Here
"Now this sounds interesting. The kitchen staff would have lined up next to me in an instant if they had heard a customer using the words 'honest' and 'won't be mad' in the same question. I knew they were in the early stages of their relationship. I slide my body along behind the desk, closer to them, in order to hear clearly." - Waiting in the 11th Arrondissement
"The candles have almost died out, the flames flickering but still holding on. I want to ask Esme if she is scared but her reply, if it's a yes, will only make me more scared and I don't want that, but I can feel my heart racing as I lift the half-empty bottle and drink to extinguish the fear. I drink a large amount of the whisky and pass it to Esme, who has her arms tightly around my waist. And as I look at her as she drinks, I wish that we were anywhere else but here. She puts the bottle down and rests her head on my shoulder. "Tell me again," I say." - Detours
"I don't know." I sigh. But I do know that nothing I can say is going to make this any less painful for her. "Maybe she has a wrinkle on her face in just the right place and I find it attractive. Maybe she says all of her statements as questions and I find that endearing. Maybe she swallows instead of spits or maybe I was just looking for a way to kill time with someone new. Reasons don't matter." - All of Us with Our Pointless Worries and Inconsequential Dramas
Reviews for Garry Crystal's short stories.
These stories depict the common scene for thirty something men and women in the lonely city, whether Paris, London, or New York: struggles at recovery from ruined relationships, lapses into sloth, alcohol, drugs, casual, sometimes barely civil, sexual encounters and of course a depression that blankets these scenes of urban discontent like a grey, palpable fog. For all this, I could not dismiss as dreary cliche this highly entertaining and thought provoking collection. It was fun to read and at some points, downright intriguing.
This collection has much to offer to readers from a broad band of tastes who enjoy good story telling. If you insist upon inspirational or "uplifting", you might be hard pressed to extract it here. For readers prone to anxiety and depressed moods these stories could pose a hazard, for those who enjoy nuanced meaning and dark ambiguities by way of succinct narration and lively dialogue, these stories are the right stuff. - Online Book Club Organization
