Perfect Strangers

Content Warning: This section contains discussion of mental illness.

Much of Perfect Strangers takes place in Paris, and with this setting, the narrative plays with cultural tropes that depict Paris as synonymous with romance. At first, Olivia, who is suffering from grief and loss, views the setting as antithetical. She writes, “City of Love. What had I been thinking, coming here? I feel attacked by all the love around me. Personally victimized, as if love itself were mocking my pain, stabbing gleefully at me with poison-tipped knives” (18). The stock representation of Paris conflicts with Olivia’s “pain,” and creates a conflict that she will have to overcome. Soon, however, in accordance with its reputation, the city will lead her to James. As James aligns her with Paris’s romantic atmosphere, the “knives” cease.

Myriad Western cultural products connect Paris to romance, including countless movies, books, and TV shows. Books like The Little Paris Bookshop highlight Paris’s reputation as a place where one can find or recapture love. In the film Funny Face (1957), Jo Stockton (played by Audrey Hepburn) captures the attention of Dick Avery (played by Fred Astaire). In Perfect Strangers, plot twists alter the characters’ identities, yet Olivia, as the esteemed writer, and James, as the acclaimed artist, mimic the dynamic between Dick and Jo. Dick is a photographer, and Jo works at a bookstore. In both narratives, the bookish woman inspires the artistic man, and the enchanting Paris setting reinforces their storybook connection.

However, the novel also highlights how Paris can move beyond this simple representation. As with Perfect Strangers, the TV show Emily in Paris encompasses a range of genres. While the titular Emily Cooper isn’t a writer, her job involves words, as she moves to Paris to work for a boutique marketing firm. While Olivia shapes reality through writing books, Emily forms it on an increasingly popular social media account. In both cases, Paris’s romantic brand provides captivating content. Emily and Olivia come across as relatively traditional about sex, so their interactions with French men are often contentious. Thus, the show and the novel push the stereotype that French men are overtly lustful. As Emily and Olivia each find love, Paris becomes a place of discord and romance.

The Paris setting also connects to the novel’s attention to Hemingway, who lived in Paris for a time as an expatriate and part of a group known as the Lost Generation. After World War I, many people were shocked and disillusioned, traveling Europe in search of meaning in the wake of great trauma. A number of artists and writers like Hemingway settled and coalesced in Paris, including Gertrude Stein, T.S. Eliot, and F. Scott Fitzgerald. Through its references to Hemingway, Perfect Strangers highlights his connection to Paris, particularly through its use of The Sun Also Rises (1926), in which Hemingway explores the lives of fictional expatriates in the wake of World War I. With these intersecting connections, Geissinger deepens the context behind using Paris as a setting, again subverting conventional romantic stereotypes to reveal additional layers of meaning.