This is a story about time travel, and it is set in the now almost forgotten Paris of the 1950’s. Laurain indulges himself and his readers by writing about the city as it was then. He writes about the people of the day, both the famous and the perfectly ordinary, as well the places that have since disappeared or have changed so much as to be unrecognisable.
There are four main characters, Hubert Larnaudie, a real estate agent, Magalie Lecoeur, an antiques restorer, Julien Chauveau a barman who works at Harry’s bar, and Bob Brown, an American from Milwaukee, who works for Harley Davidson. Hubert, Magalie and Julien are neighbours who live in the same apartment building. Bob is an Airbnb tenant who has rented an apartment in their building.
Bob arrives at the building just in time to rescue Hubert who was locked in his cellar by a couple of thieves. Julien and Magalie also show up to help. A grateful Hubert invites them to his apartment to share a bottle of wine that he’s just picked up from his cellar. It's a bottle of Chateau Saint-Antoine, 1954, an exceptional wine. They have a wonderful evening sharing the wine and trading stories.
They wake up the next morning and step out of the building, expecting a perfectly normal day, only to find, that it is in fact a beautiful day in 1954. They each discover this independently, at least the three Parisians do. Bob goes about the city appreciating its old-world charm and wondering at the complete absence of electronic devices…
He meets up with the others, they explain what’s happened and then they set about trying to figure out how to get back to their own time…in 2017.
They spend a day in the city exploring it, each going to places of personal significance to them and through this day, Laurain celebrates some of the iconic sights of Paris from Harry’s bar to Les Halles to the Louvre where the Mona Lisa hangs as one painting among many, not protected by plexi-glass, or lit by special lights as it is now. The characters run into some of the celebrities of the day like Salvador Dali, Audrey Hepburn, Francois Truffaut, Edith Piaf and others.
After a thoroughly memorable couple of days, they get back to their own time. The explanation for why they went back in time and how they got back to their own time is a bit far-fetched, but I don’t think that matters. Because the how of time travel is irrelevant, at least to this story. It’s a contrivance, just a means to take the characters out of their familiar surroundings and put them in the past, a particular time in French history and the history of the world.
That was a good time. Not everything about it was perfect. Women certainly didn’t have the kind of rights and freedoms that they have today, but it was still a good time. There was a lot about the way people lived then that was charming and life-affirming. We get to see and experience some of that along with the characters. It’s a good story, a bit whimsical, a touch fantastical and very entertaining.