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View from Rue Saint-Georges

A blog about expatriate life in Paris. Thomas Chatterton Williams is the author of a memoir, Losing My Cool. He is at work on a book about how we define race in America, told through his own experience of growing up with a white mother and black father, and of raising a blond-haired, blue-eyed daughter in France.

PREVIOUS POSTS

Reaching Out

The best way to escape our current political predicament is to keep talking

You Must Be Joking

A comic book, a movie, politics, and race

Language Unbound

How the words we use influence how we think

On the Turning Away

Our tendency to ignore human suffering

License to Chill

Life slows down when you can’t drive

Existential Split

On feeling the pull of home

A laptop sits open on a rustic wooden table next to a coffee and an evocative travel photograph

Too Much of a Good Thing

Relief at the end of summer vacation

Priceless Moments

How having children focuses a writer’s mind

Life on a Razor’s Edge

The hidden joys of shaving

Vicarious Pleasure

The joy of seeing a friend succeed

Rhetorical Rules of Engagement

Shunning those who disagree with us won’t help anyone

Seaside Sojourns

Fleeing the heat of the French capital

Black and white photo of ICE agents deporting migrants

In Praise of Shame

Without it, we are lost

Step Aside

Do we really want to live in a society where credentials don’t matter?

Beating the Heat

Brittany is France’s best refuge from soaring temperatures

Selective Lip Service

Attending an elite college is not an entitlement

The Best and Worst of Times

A weekend trip exposes France’s contradictions

Mornings of Stillness and Wonder

How my son is helping me to rediscover the City of Lights

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