About two things, Sue Harper was absolutely certain. Paris was the most exciting city in the world and retirement was supposed to be a time when anything was possible. But she was terrified. From the tragic life of a French diva to the story of a Jewish family destroyed by the Nazis, Harper discovered connections to Paris and to herself as she struggled with retirement.
When the rush of post-work life – that time when everything seemed possible – crashed into the panic of “Oh-oh, what now?” Harper felt rootless and disengaged. Worse still, from the outside, her retirement looked perfect. She and her partner travelled, skied in two hemispheres, and seemed to have it all. But at home, she filled her days with obsessive exercising, coffee dates and endless hours of mindless television.
Then her partner was accepted into an art course in Paris. Harper claimed she was going to be like Hemingway, become a flâneur and write about her adventures. She knew it was a lie. But slowly, as she mapped out her walks through cobblestoned neighbourhoods, city cemeteries and halls of ancient Greek vases in the vast Louvre museum, she found her way back to herself.
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About the author
Sue Harper studied psychology and English literature at the University of Toronto and graduated with a master’s degree in English language and literature from the University of Guelph. After thirty-one years in education (including teaching motorcycling and skiing) and co-authoring thirteen English textbooks, Harper returned to school at age sixty-two to do a Masters of Fine Arts in creative non-fiction. A self-professed ‘senior nomad’ (some would suggest ‘crazy person’), Harper and her partner spend back-to-back winters in Kelowna, BC and their adopted hometown of Wanaka, New Zealand. Harper writes for lifestyle, travel and wine magazines. Winter in the City of Light is her first full-length book.
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