Monsieur Mediocre

One American Learns the High Art of Being Everyday French

By: John von Sothen

Narrated by: John von Sothen

A hilarious, candid account of what life in France is actually like, from a writer for Vanity Fair and GQ

Americans love to love Paris. We buy books about how the French parent, why French women don't get fat, and how to be Parisian wherever you are. While our work hours increase every year, we think longingly of the six weeks of vacation the French enjoy, imagining them at the seaside in stripes with plates of fruits de mer.

John von Sothen fell in love with Paris through the stories his mother told of her year spent there as a student. And then, after falling for and marrying a French waitress he met in New York, von Sothen moved to Paris. But 15 years in, he's finally ready to admit his mother's Paris is mostly a fantasy. In this hilarious and delightful collection of essays, von Sothen walks us through real life in Paris - not only myth-busting our Parisian daydreams but also revealing the inimitable and too often invisible pleasures of family life abroad.

Relentlessly funny and full of incisive observations, Monsieur Mediocre is ultimately a love letter to France - to its absurdities, its history, its ideals - but it's a very French love letter: frank, smoky, unsentimental. It is a clear-eyed ode to a beautiful, complex, contradictory country from someone who both eagerly and grudgingly calls it home.

"This book made me laugh out loud on the subway. J'adore every jaded character, every hilarious insight, and every upended stereotype. Most of all I felt this hum of love - for France, for family, and for life, really - that gives every essay a beguiling depth." (Maeve Higgins, author of Maeve in America)

©2019 John von Sothen (P)2019 Penguin Audio

Critic reviews

Named one of the best travel books in the New York Times' "Summer Reading" list

“John von Sothen’s memoir of Parisian expat life...offers dozens of these inside-baseball insights into a place that continues to mystify and enchant.... von Sothen offers some delicious, uniquely French details.” (The Washington Post)

“What do you need to know about the places you’re going? A dozen new books answer this question in strikingly idiosyncratic ways, wreathing their authors’ wanderings in vivid back story - sometimes emotional, sometimes empirical, sometimes imperial - enveloping the reader in a kind of legible Sensurround. These books ought to come with 3-D glasses and a soundtrack.... The American writer John von Sothen crushed out on a more universally recognized source of allure, a beautiful Frenchwoman, whom he met in a bistro in Brooklyn at the turn of the millennium. Soon his love for that woman, Anaïs, launched him across the Atlantic to Paris, where he remains today. Monsieur Mediocre records his love affair with France and with Anaïs (whom he married), and his continuing, bumbling attempts to carry off la vie Parisienne with something approaching grace - or, at least, skirting calamity.” (The New York Times)

"Hilarious and touching! We hear often how cultured the French are, how sophisticated, how superior. Expat John von Sothen's Paris is, in his words, 'a mess - a confusing, roiling, weird place.' In other words, it's a lot of fun - not unlike this charming book." (Ada Calhoun, author of Wedding Toasts I'll Never Give)

Loved it!

Mr Von Sothen writes about his move to Paris, marriage and raising his family in the 10th Arrondissement. He’s not afraid to laugh at his misunderstandings as he learns how things are done in France.

Laugh Out Loud Funny!

Absolutely delightful and laugh and loud funny! The author’s keen observations and ability to poke fun at himself land hilariously. Recommend!!!

Humorous

I think we Americans have such a constant if distant love affair with France that we are suckers for every tale that teases us with the possibility of taking us closer. Maybe I just should make that an "I-Statement". Nevertheless, I will take responsibility for wanting more France and less author. More Paris and less children. It wasn't very satisfying in the end, but if I know someone who has children who is thinking of going to live in France, I will certainly refer them to this book.

I’m a sucker for these kind of stories.....

I enjoyed the story, delivery and pace throughout. Highly enjoyable! Also appreciated the past and current political commentary. I feel I learned several fun tidbits.

My life is boring too!

listen to the most boring man alive tell you his life history, sometimes in France!

Mediocre Work from Mr. Mediocre

This book is full of Cliché content and predictable narrative; the reading is phony with pretend voices for different characters. The French pronunciation is done poorly too and I’m no French myself.

The only highlight is the last chapter; no, it’s not because the book is ending, it’s because as a single child, I understand the author’s sentiment about his aging parents. His feelings are genuine here, yet it has little to do with French living, it’s as if he wrote the French part as a banner to draw people in so he can do an autobiography on his American childhood with his parents.

when will it be clever or funny?????

Oh wow....nothing but America bashing and boring stories about how to get out of raising my children. Why have children? This book was reviewed as laugh out loud hilarious. Not true. The narrator was annoying because he has adopted the habit of saying din't instead of didn't and woun't instead of wouldn't coun't instead of couldn't. So irritating. I feel like the reviews were done by family members. Wish I could get my credit back. UGH