So Chic and yet so invisible….

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So Chic!Yesterday my book about French women Two Lipsticks and a Lover came out in France. Here it is called So Chic! and they have translated the UK title and made it a sub-title. Some of you may remember the scary meeting I had with the foremost book publicist in Paris who told me if I didn’t improve my French this week of interviews would be a disaster.

I kept my side of the bargain. Every day I called my long-suffering friend Jacques and spoke to him in French for around 15 minutes. My husband had to leave the house while this was going on. “I’m pleased you’re doing it,” he would say, heading for the door. “I just don’t want to hear it.”

I read Elle, Marie-Claire, Paris-Match; I watched French television. Even my neighbour noticed my French has got better. I imagined wafting around Paris this week, my publicity team in tow, gracing various TV channels with interviews and using the subjunctive like normal mortals use the present tense.

I am not at all chuffed to report that rather than Paris I am in my armchair with Max the cat sitting on my keyboard while Olivia (off sick from school) coughs next to me. To cheer myself up I look at amazon.fr to catch a glimpse of my newly-published book. It is very exciting to be published in the same language as Flaubert and Proust. Granted their books were a lot longer and possibly less superficial than mine, although I’m sure if Flaubert had got on to matching underwear he’d have written about it.

On amazon.fr there is no cover image of my book and my rating is far, far worse than To Hell in High Heels on amazon.co.uk which isn’t even published yet.

The French public is clearly not interested in my opinion of French women. Apart from one lone presenter that is who has a show on the radio statrion France Inter called 5/7. He interviewed me for his show and promised me a 10-minute slot. I though the name was rather promising, cinq a sept and all that. Until he told me it in fact goes out between five and seven in the morning.

So good work Madame Publicist – I am big among French lorry drivers…..

Copyright: Helena Frith Powell 2008


9 thoughts on So Chic and yet so invisible....

  • It sounds as if the French public does not know about the book yet. I would call the publicist and complain that this week is indeed a disaster, not because of your French, but because of her reluctance to work so you could get a subjunctive in there somewhere after IF only you …..

  • Dear Helena…

    Thank you very much… I just bought Two Lipsticks last week (about to finish my 2nd round) and I’ve changed myself gradually… and yes, somebody notice the difference… I’ve neglected my appearance/pampering myself thinking too much about my problems before… Now, I’m a new person.. I apply lotion & olive oil on my body (two layers… hahaha) after shower twice a day… spend extra hours at the pharmacy looking for bodycare products, bought myself new clothes, perfumes/body spray, etc, etc… (I’m almost broke now.. hahaha)… I don’t care… I just want to look & feel good for myself… Thanks again..

  • It’s obviously a sleeper – I think that’s the term. One of those books (or movies) that start off slowly and gain traction. It’ll have a devoted following before you know it.

  • Now I feel dreadful….what do I see today, a FULL PAGE in Paris Match. So she did a good job after all. I had better write a new blog.
    Hx

  • Helena, your post is so amazing:I actually bought this french version. It happened by chance: your book was at the eyes’s level on a shelve in a big book shop in the Paris surburb. The title doesn’t really say much, but the subtitules attracted my attention and i thought: “That’s interesting: what can be her opinion on french women????!” So, I bought it! I can say, on behalf of most of the french women that we ARE actually VERY interested by your vision of us. The problem is (and I agree with snusmormor) that the french public doesn’t know about it. That’s so sad!
    Bye for now…and thank you for “so chic” (i really enjoyed it!)

  • OOppp! I meant :”the french public doen’t know about your book”…you understood, anyway, hum?;-)

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Helena Frith Powell was born in Sweden to a Swedish mother and Italian father, but grew up mainly in England. She is the author of eleven books, translated into several languages including Chinese and Russian. She wrote the French Mistress column The Sunday Times about life in France for several years. She is a regular contributor to the Daily Mail, Mail on Sunday, The Times, Daily Telegraph, Tatler Magazine and Harper’s Bazaar.

Helena has been the editor of four magazines, including M Magazine, a supplement for the Abu Dhabi-based National Newspaper and FIVE, a high-end fashion glossy, also published in Abu Dhabi. Helena was also editor-in-chief of 360 Life, a quarterly glossy magazine published with the Sports 360 Newspaper in Dubai, part of the Chalhoub Group.

Helena contributes regularly to UK-based newspapers and magazines and holds a Masters in Creative Writing from the University of Cambridge. She is working on a thriller set in Sweden as well as a novel about the relationship between Virginia Woolf and Katherine Mansfield called Sense of an Echo.

In 2022 her short story The Japanese Gardener came second in the Fish Publishing Short Story Prize. One of her stories was also shortlisted for the Bridport Short Story Prize. When she’s not writing, she works as a headhunter for the media and entertainment industry for the Sucherman Group. 

Helena, who was educated at Durham University, lives in the Languedoc region of France with her husband Rupert and their three children.

Bibliography

More France Please, we’re British; Gibson Square 2004

Two Lipsticks and a Lover 2005; Gibson Square (hardback)

All You Need to be Impossibly French; (US version of above) Penguin 2006

Two Lipsticks and a Lover; Arrow Books (paperback) 2007

Ciao Bella Gibson Square; (hardback) 2006

Ciao Bella Gibson Square; (paperback) 2007

So Chic! (French version of Two Lipsticks) Leduc Editions 2008 (also translated into Chinese, Russian and Thai)

More, More France; Gibson Square 2009

To Hell in High Heels; Arrow Books 2009 (also translated into Polish)

The Viva Mayr Diet; Harper Collins 2009

Love in a Warm Climate; Gibson Square 2011

The Ex-Factor; Gibson Square 2013

Smart Women Don’t Get Wrinkles; Gibson Square 2016

The Arnolfini Marriage; Amazon Kindle December 2016

Smart Women Don’t Get Wrinkles (paperback); Gibson Square spring 2018

The Longest Night; Gibson Square spring 2019

 

 

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