David Downie on "Melanie's Song"
David Downie a fellow francophile travel-writer and novelist in his own right, gives his thoughts on the new novel by Joanna Biggar.
“Joanna Biggar explored Paris as a post-adolescent during the distant Age of Kennedy in That Paris Year. Now she explores the backwaters of American revolutionary culture during the so-called Summer of Love in Melanie’s Song. With wit and aplomb, Biggar reminds readers that love may be free but has its consequences. A poet and journalist, when she turns her talents to storytelling, the result is a page-turning novel where mystery meets self-invention. Voila! C’est formidable!”
—David Downie, author of A Passion for Paris and The Gardener of Eden
David Downie is the author of over a dozen nonfiction books, one literary novel and two thrillers, dozens of anthologies (as a contributor), an app about Paris history (featuring key Dates from 8000 BC to the present, plus key People, Places and Events), and another app about the food and wine of Rome. Downie’s latest nonfiction works are A Taste of Paris: A History of the Parisian Love Affair with Food (winner of the 2017 Gourmand Award for best American food-travel book) and A Passion for Paris: Romanticism and Romance in the City of Light, both published by St. Martin’s Press.