by Shan Serafin
If you’re cursed with a relentlessly noisy writer brain like mine, then every time you visit a foreign city and stroll across some historic bridge, or walk through an ancient palace, or strut across some touristy stretch of marble, you end up projecting all sorts of fictional scenarios onto things—even if you’ve promised yourself you’ll stop desecrating your vacations this way. And, of course, of all the cities I do this in, Paris is my worst and best offender.
Every inch of this town has a continental-sized revolutionary history behind it that bombards the imagination with perfect locations for bookish mayhem. You stroll through a simple tunnel and can’t help but picture a sexy spy picking up microfilm or an adulterating ambassador meeting a lover. You wonder how many murder weapons lie at the bottom of that canal. Ten? A hundred and ten? Is the Eiffel Tower secretly an antenna to the past? It’s a burden, this brain of mine, but, luckily, the affliction can be exploited for your benefit.
You see, I’m an American author who’s been living in Paris for six years, doing nothing but writing books, gaining weight, eating my way through bakeries, strolling through parks—midday—every week—feeling like I’m cheating on what should have been a nice, calm mid-life crisis. Maybe that’s why my stories are edgy. I’m surrounded by such joyfully regal architecture, immersed in it daily, that in order to achieve any sort of balance between my yin and my yang, the fiction I write ends up leaning quite yin. My upcoming thriller, The Paris Vendetta, centers on the illicit behavior within dangerously elite European circles, and, as it’s set against a Parisian backdrop, I’m happy to say that each setting is a place I’ve either walked through or cowered through. I’m thus honored to condense the experience into my list of the five most inspiring Parisian spots for the inner novelist in each of us…
#5 THE CATACOMBS
Let’s start at the bottom, literally, in a place unlike any other. The Paris catacombs comprise two thousand acres, six million corpses, two hundred feet of depth, and, wow, two hundred miles of tunnels, the majority of which are still uncharted. And all of it lies deviously underneath the innocent posh city of lights and love. You’re subterranean, totally walled in, bathed in darkness, surrounded by nothing but dead people—dead bones, to be exact—piles of skulls, arms, feet—with every ghostly trope imaginable coming screaming to your consciousness. Grab a pen.
#4 THE LOUVRE
You don’t have to be Dan Brown to see the potential for intrigue in this palatial museum, although it does help. What an absolutely enchanting, intriguing, overwhelming, lovely, decadent, gaudy, colossal structure, featuring all sorts of literary mischief. Thieves? Of course, we think like thieves here. Of course, we envision a lithe prowler, sliding past laser beams at night, wondering how she’ll then find a reliable buyer for her stolen Mona Lisa in today’s inflationary climate.
#3 THE PARIS OPERA HOUSE
Plush interiors, spiraling grand staircases—this is everything you’d want in a four-century-old masterpiece. Ten years ago I was here for a show and my date and I were late, and as soon as we entered the lobby, a velvet-covered usher told us to wait and so we waited and then that usher ushered us up some stairs, which didn’t seem right for my ticket location, but we followed him along an isolated corridor—eerie—then entered a narrow door to a small room, where I learned that we were now in box seats—as in the box seats, as in the corner box, superior to all other boxes, where you hold your snooty binoculars on a stick and murmur snooty words in British as you peer over at Lady Hibblesbee in her ghastly jewels. The show was amazing, by the way—the Paris ballet—yet the whole time I was there, all I could think of was Abraham Lincoln’s head.
#2 THE NOTRE DAME
Number four on this list is the Notre Dame. It burned in 2019 and certain hidden items were lost forever so I’m ravenously curious what those items were. It’s nine hundred years old, this towering cathedral. You can practically hear it whispering its secrets to you as the ultimate source of French fiction—just ask Victor Hugo.
#1 THE BANKS OF THE SEINE
Topping our list is the Seine itself. This gentle landmark flows along the map in an upside-down smile, where virtually every square meter of its banks offers you a chance to stand and behold the finest architecture imaginable. The Paris leg runs ten miles and, no matter where you go, there’s an area begging for something illicit. Picture it. A foggy night and we hear some woman’s heels echoing as she meets a man in a trench coat, then this woman hurries away with a package, and you see the man just lying there, somewhat stabbed. I recommend you visit the Place de la Concorde at night when it’s lit, making sure to pass the Petit Palais before you cross the Alexandre III Bridge to view the Eiffel Tower, which is an antenna, by the way, so you can gawk the number-one best-looking spot on earth, perfect for an Act Two murder. Also, perfect for a first kiss. But I’ll let you decide which is more romantic.
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