Merde Actually – Stephen Clarke
Paul West, the young Englishman who stumbled through a year of culture shock in A Year in the Merde, is back in France and ready for more adventures. In Merde Actually, the comic sequel by Stephen Clarke, Paul has decided to stay in Paris and make a go of it, setting out to open his own English tearoom in the French capital.
Of course, nothing in France is ever simple. Paul must navigate the country’s notoriously complicated bureaucracy, deal with suppliers and staff, and cope with the eccentricities of French business culture. His romantic life is equally complicated, as his relationship with his French girlfriend brings him into contact with her family and their very particular ideas about how things should be done.
The story takes Paul beyond Paris, including a summer stay in the French countryside, where he encounters rural traditions, local politics and food customs that baffle and amuse him. Along the way, he wrestles with language mistakes, cultural misunderstandings, unexpected romantic entanglements and the eternal rivalry between the English and the French, all described with self-deprecating humor.
Clarke, who lived in France for many years, mixes fiction with sharp observations about French life, from strikes and holidays to etiquette and attitudes toward food, love and work. The book pokes gentle fun at both nations’ stereotypes.
Light, irreverent and entertaining, Merde Actually is a fun read for fans of comic fiction, Francophiles and anyone who has ever struggled to fit into another culture. It contains strong language, sexual references and humor based on national stereotypes.
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