That Paris can be said to have top billing in the title of Gregory Curtis memoir is meaningful not only because the City of Light is the book s primary setting, a place Curtis visited repeatedly with his wife Tracy during her life and one he continued to visit after her death, but because of the massive presence that Paris holds in Curtis telling. To him, it is less a collection of buildings, streets, and people than a godlike being – huge, ancient, and deep, with its own sense of life and consciousness. It s a thing one is drawn to and yet it is indifferent to those who come to it. Paris didn t care whether I was there or not, Curtis writes at one point, which makes it a place that can be explored without objection or reprisal – a place one may discover fully, and in so doing discover oneself.