Paris Without Her

In this moving, tender memoir of losing a spouse late in life, the longtime editor of Texas Monthly, newly widowed, returns alone to a city whose enchantment he's only ever shared with his wife, in search of solace, memories, and the courage to find a way forward.

At the age of sixty-six, after thirty-five years of marriage, Gregory Curtis finds himself a widower. Tracy--with whom he fell in love the first time he saw her--has succumbed to a long battle with cancer. Paralyzed by grief, agonized by social interaction, Curtis turns to watching magic lessons on DVD--"a pathetic, almost comical substitute" for his evenings with Tracy.

To break the spell, he returns to the country where he had the "best and happiest times" of his life. As he navigates this new life and this storied city, Curtis takes us on a grand tour of his days in Paris with Tracy, piecing together the portrait of a woman, a marriage, parenthood, and his life's great love through the memories of six unforgettable trips to the City of Lights.

He is an ever-curious guide, almost as much of the city's art and architecture as he is of the bewildering emotional state that ensues after losing a life partner. Paris Without Her is a work of tremendous courage and insight--an ode to the lovely woman who was his wife, to a magnificent city, and to the self we might invent, and reinvent, there.