The life-affirming grownup fable we all need right about now. I loved this book so much. You can read my review of it at the Washington Independent Review of Books: https://www.washingtonindependentreviewofbooks.com/index.php/bookreview/perestroika-in-paris-a-novel

Perestroika in Paris is a fairy-tale like story that follows a thoroughbred mare, Perestroika, through the streets of Paris. The story is told mostly through Perestroika’s naïve, sheltered point of view. His companions: a raven, a dog, a rat and a duck family are collected along his travels, provide companionship and insights on the real world. 8-year-old Etienne befriends the animals and opens the door of his home to them unbeknownst to his 100-year-old great-grandmother who is deaf and blind, forming a sweet friendship. Although the story was somewhat repetitious, it was a charming read that can be enjoyed by all ages. 3.5 stars

Peristroika or Paras for short is a spirited young race horse. Once night she finds her stall door open and walks out into Paris. Along the way she is befriended by a dog, Frida, and raven Raoul, a pair of ducks and many other creatures that all communicate with each other. Living in a park, and foraging for food, their friendship blossoms. and they count on each each. Then Paras meets and young boy and follows him to his home. Their she discovers another world.. The boy, Etienne is lonely and lives in exclusion with his almost 100 year old great grandmother. How long can they co-exist together? This is a story of friendship, love, freedom and exploration as only Jane Smiley can tell.

It's a charming premise, but after the first 50pages, I couldn't go on. Maybe I don't like horses enough?

A fantastic book about community, family and friendship. Great ending. A book I would recommend to my patrons looking for a well-written, nice story.

Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist Jane Smiley has published a new book— “Perestroika in Paris”—that contains some amazing writing. In my librarian’s eyes, this book could equally be enjoyed by a 12-year-old or an octogenarian or by everyone in between. It also is written from the viewpoint of several animals (quite convincingly) as well as some humans. The setting is Paris, and the plot will warm your heart.

Fro reading some of her young adult novels about horses, I knew that Smiley must be a lover of horses. And the Perestroika, nicknamed “Paras,” in this novel is a 3-year-old filly. At the beginning of the novel, the naturally curious Paras has an unexpected opportunity when her groom, Rania, briefly leaves her gate unlatched. Paras trots off and before long is munching grass on the Place du Trocadéro, just across the Seine from the Eiffel Tower.

There she meets a German shorthaired pointer named Frida, and eventually she meets an erudite raven named Raoul:

““I am Sir Raoul Corvus Corax, the twenty-third of that name. My establishment is just over there, on the Rue Benjamin-Franklin, but the family estate is out in Châteaufort—that’s straight to Versailles, then right.” The horse and the dog looked at Raoul blankly, as horses and dogs so often did. He cleared his throat again. “Let me say that, from my aerie in that tree”—he lifted his right wing this time—“I noted that you two damsels seemed to be in distress.”

“Raoul preened himself a bit, then said, “French, English, German, Spanish, Romany, Basque, and Chinese. You may not know this, but all birds speak Chinese; however, there are so many dialects that sometimes we have a hard time understanding each other.” “

Smiley goes on to write from the animal kingdom points of view of some mallard ducks nesting in the pond under the Eiffel Tower. Some more human characters enter the story: a butcher, a baker, a groundskeeper and a vegetable stand owner.

And then two of my favorite characters of the novel enter the plot: 96-year-old Madame Éveline de Mornay, and her orphaned great-grandson, 8-year-old Étienne. Madame is blind and deaf, but cares for Etienne, goes shopping, and cooks delicious meals despite all this, and it is heartwarming the way he cares for her. They live on the ground floor of an old crumbling mansion abutting the Champ de Mars.

The following passage describes Madam WALKING through the snow to church with Etienne helping her:

“The animals didn’t know it, but Étienne did know it: this was the Feast of the Immaculate Conception. His great-grandmama had been up since before the sun, preparing herself for her long walk to the Mass. She had put on two pairs of socks, and some sturdy boots, gloves as well as mittens, leggings, a long wool dress, two sweaters, and her coat. Now she wrapped her head in a scarf she had knitted twenty years ago (four-ply cashmere—she could afford that then). A piece of lace, which she would wear during the service, was in her pocket. Étienne stood quietly as she patted him over to make sure that he, too, was suitably clothed. He was. It was a long walk at any time of the year, many times longer than the walk to the shops, but as far as Madame de Mornay was concerned, that only meant that you left plenty of time to get there. They opened the door and went outside. Étienne had cleared the step and the walk to the gate. Now he took along his little shovel, and as his great-grandmama moved down the walk, which had been not perfectly cleared by the city, he scraped bits of snow and ice to either side, widening her path. He was a good boy. The very few people who were out glanced at him and smiled.

It was to be a long Mass, and Étienne and Madame de Mornay got there in good time. Étienne left his small shovel outside, escorted his great-grandmama to her usual spot, about halfway down the center aisle. She did not kneel, but after she took off her coat, gloves, and scarf, set them aside, and put on her piece of lace, she sat quietly, with her hands in her lap, and closed her eyes to say her prayers. Madame de Mornay knew all the prayers there were in the book—she said them aloud even though she could not hear herself.”

The book has some witty observations.

Frida, the dog, says the following about the human joggers she observes:
“Running humans never looked at a thing,” she notices. “Perhaps they could not do two things at once, which was why she had never seen even the fastest ones catch a pigeon.”

And I loved this comment about humans from Raoul, the raven:

““In my view,” he declares, “there is nothing quite as amusing as observing humans in their own habitats. They sleep on their backs with their mouths wide open … and there is not much of this walking about that you see out of doors, looking lordly and in charge. It’s all lolling and lazing and stoking themselves with food and drink.”

Will Paras ever find her way back to her stall and her owner and groom who are worried about her?

And what about 8-year-old Etienne who has never been to school, but instead has been educated by Madame and self taught by reading books—what will happen to him when she dies? Who will take care of him?

Smiley—an incredibly talented writer—has written a unique, quiet, and thoughtful book for all ages.

Thank you to the publisher Knopf and to NetGalley for the Advanced Reader’s Copy of this book and for allowing me to review it. (1 December 2020 publication date)

What do you get when you take an escaped race horse, a raven, and a German Shorthaired dog and put them in Paris? You get Perestroika in Paris, of course! This is a great read for all animal lovers. Told through the eyes of the animal characters, Jane Smiley does a wonderful job of giving voice to the different creatures. I especially enjoyed the rat father and son duo, Kurt and Conrad. Readers whose old childhood favorites include Charlotte’s Web or Watership Down will find this book delightful. I certainly did.

Surprised by how much I enjoyed this peek into Paris through the eyes of animals. Perestroika a curious race horse wanders into Paris, where she lives for a time in a park and in the house of an eight year old boy caring for his aging great-grandmother. Delightfully told through multiple perspectives that include Frida, a dog who does the shopping, Raoul an aging raven, and several humans who encounter the animals in their small neighborhood.

This was a sweet book - think Charlotte's Web for adults. I did not know what to expect when I started this book. as the other titles I have read by the author are nothing like this book. I was pleasantly surprised at how attached I became to the human and animal characters. I already miss them and wonder what Paras and Etienne are getting up to today.

What a delight! Smiley delivers an anthropomorphic romp through Paris. Friendships blossom between horse and dog, rat and raven, boy and a whole menagerie. The streets of Paris come alive with the smells and tastes, sounds and sights from the animals perspectives.

PERESTROIKA IN PARIS by Jane Smiley is her 31st book, but the first with talking animals. Smiley explains that she has been thinking about this novel for close to a decade and hopes it offers "a distraction" to all the stress of 2020. A light and easy read, the story begins with a three-year-old filly named Perestroika (or Paras for short) having just won a race. Ever curious, she manages to open her stall and ambles off to explore a nearby park. There she meets a cast of animal characters (a pointer dog named Frida, a talkative raven and two mallards) who develop affection and concern for each other. Helpful, generous humans provide food and eventually Paras is befriended by young Etienne, an eight-year-old orphan who cares for his grandmother in an old house in Paris. Frankly, there does not appear to be a great deal happening in the story; instead, the entertainment comes from wry observations, a growing sense of belonging, and the lingering worry of discovery. Described in various reviews as a wistful charmer, whimsical, heartwarming, and comforting, PERESTROIKA IN PARIS received starred reviews from Booklist and Library Journal.

Jane Smiley is a writer of great skill and wide interests, whether it be a sharp dissection of academic politics (Moo) or the sweep of family drama, but she has a special love for horses. Perestroika in Paris is a horse story the way Charlotte’s Web is a spider story. It is charming, sensitive and funny with the added pleasure of offering a behind-the -scenes tour of Paris. It is full of quotable lines, both sweet and clever, and although I found it the perfect bedtime story to read to myself, I could also imagine sharing it with a youngster who loves E.B.White.
The plot centers on the unlikely friendship of a curious horse, a wise dog and a cynical raven who in turn connect with Etienne, an 8 year old living with his great grandmother in a dusty Parisian mansion. Smiley clearly loves her characters but she writes of them with an understanding of their natures, not sentimental or silly. Yes, it is a work of fiction, but just possibly, you could imagine it all happening, and what a wonderful world that would be!

This book was just pure fun. I was so interested in seeing how Jane Smiley tackled animal characters in an adult fiction novel. It was the perfect heartwarming and cozy read for December. I never thought my love for grumpy characters would also apply to a crow, but alas, here we are.

4 ⭐️ for Perestroika in Paris

Synopsis: From the Pulitzer Prize-winning author, Jane Smiley, comes a novel about extraordinary animals whose lives intersect with a young boy in Paris. When Paras, short for "Perestroika," curiously wonders out of her horse stall into the City of Light, her world is turned upside down. She meets Frida, a German shorthaired pointer, who recently lost her “person,” and has been forced to learn to get by without attracting the attention of suspicious Parisians. The two embrace their freedom and love for the city as they explore its different parts and meet other animals. Everything changes, though, when Paras meets a human boy, Etienne, who is living alone with his sickly great grandmother. The relationship that forms between Paras, Frida, and Etienne celebrates curiosity, ingenuity, and the desire of all creatures for true love, freedom, and companionship.

My thoughts: this is a heartwarming story filled with some amazing elements. It gives you adorable animals and the City of Light (numerous pastries are described 🤤)—what more could you ask for? Between the length (only 288 pages) and the writing style, it is a quick and easy read. Also, although I requested this one because it has a German shorthaired pointer in it, it turned out being much deeper than I expected. The book is quite philosophical at times, musing on each animal’s or human’s desires for his or her life. Overall, the book is a perfect tale of how each of us can find our “pack,” even in the most unlikely of places and creatures.

Who should read: fans of W. Bruce Cameron, fans of books that feature animal perspectives, or any animal lover who would enjoy a Parisian setting.

This is an enjoyable animal fantasy. Peres (Perestroika) is a racehorse who managed to let herself out of the stable in Paris and sets out on an adventure. As she explores Paris, she becomes friends with a dog and an orphan boy. Their adventures are a great way to see Paris though different eyes and escape the political talking heads. I’ve been a children’s librarian forever and reading this book gives me the same warm feeing that reading a book by Kate DiCamillo.

Perestroika (Paras for short) discovers an unlatched stall and ventures out to find out if the grass really is greener in other parts of Paris. She meanders into a park near the Eiffel Tower and her period of freedom begins. Along with her are Frida (a dog), Roux (a raven), and Sid and Nancy (the Mallard couple). Frida is smart enough to know what to do with the euros in the purse Paras brings along. Roux pontificates at length on a variety of subjects. Eventually they go home with a boy who lives with his blind and deaf great-grandmother, Madame de Mornay. A rat named Kurt joins the circle and it is delightful to see how all of their lives are changed as a result of their fellowship with one another. Assorted neighborhood shopkeepers and others develop relationships with one of more of the band of animals, but no one puts two and two together. How long can they all remain under the radar? Until the root cellar is empty? As long as Madame de Mornay is still living? When does indecision cross the line to procrastination? The city of Paris is a character of her own in this story. If I had visited that iconic city in the past I do believe I would have been ready to give this book five stars. The cover alone is spectacular. Thinking of a horse taking naps inside a beautiful old house makes me smile so big. Smiley's ability to take us into the minds and hearts of the animals is a gift and reminds me of Meindert DeJong and Kate DiCamillo.

Thank you to Knopf Doubleday and NetGalley for a DRC in exchange for an honest review.

After the furor of political and Covid19 news, this was a delightful, calming story to simply enjoy. It manages to bring together the best of people (and animals) at a time when it is needed most. Told from a horse's point of view (yes, horse), it champions curiosity, friendship, overcoming fear, and what makes a family. Loved it.

Thanks to NetGalley and Knopf Doubleday Publishing for the ARC to read and review.

I was totally charmed by Smiley's latest. I still love "Moo"; however, the complications of life in 2020 call for a simple, comforting read, so, for this year at least, this is my favorite. I give it five out of five hearts.

This was a lovely escapist read. It is a fairytale for adults and like all fairytales it requires a certain suspension of realistic cynicism. Personally, I am more than willing to suspend my realistic cynicism and escape to a magical Paris with Perestroika, a Candide like horse. I encourage you to read this and enjoy pre-dawn trots through Paris visiting bakeries and hidden courtyards with Peri and her loyal dog companion.

Charming, inventive, makes you sit up and notice the beauty surrounding you no matter where you are. Perfect for anyone to while away a rainy afternoon but especially for francophiles and hippophiles.