Paris

A sweeping historical saga whose true protagonist is the city itself, transformed over the course of two millennia from a Roman military settlement on the marshy banks of the Seine into the true City of Light, the epicenter of Western civilization.

The novel spans more than seven centuries of Parisian history, tracing the lives of several families whose descendants continue to cross paths through the generations. Among its characters are aristocrats descended from Charlemagne’s knights, rebels who helped fan the flames of the French Revolution, shopkeepers who lost their fortunes under Louis XV and regained them under Napoleon, as well as commoners from Montmartre who built the Eiffel Tower and robbed the wealthy near the Moulin Rouge cabaret. Real historical events — the Wars of Religion, the storming of the Bastille, the Revolution itself, the uprising of the Commune, the construction of the Eiffel Tower, the World’s Fair, the birth of the Moulin Rouge, and the rise of Impressionism — are closely interwoven with fictional characters and their personal stories of love, betrayal, and family secrets. The story is told through the lens of six families, and it is by watching their descendants continually intersect across the ages that the reader truly feels the passage of time.