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Paris Echo
Paris Echo
Jun 16, 2025 1:39 PM

Author:Sebastian Faulks

Paris Echo

American academic Hannah and runaway Moroccan teenager Tariq have little in common, yet both find themselves haunted by the ghosts of Paris.

'Superb... Weaves winningly between the present and the Second World War, between Tangier and Paris' Observer

Hannah listens to the extraordinary witness of women living under the German Occupation of World War Two and finds a city bursting with clues, connections and past love affairs, while in the migrant suburbs Tariq is searching for a mother he barely knew. Urgent and deeply moving, Paris Echo asks how much we really need to know in order to live a valuable life.

'An exquisite book. Deeply affecting' Daily Mail

'Faulks is doing what he does best' The Times

Reviews

Superb... weaves winningly between the present and the second world war, between Tangiers and Paris.

—— Alex Preston , Observer

‘[Paris Echo is] brimming with Faulks’s deep affection for Paris. His outsider’s interest in quirky street names and quaint corners transports his readers there too. And in the end, the book is powered by his ambition to evoke that place, its ghostliness, those spectres of history, lurking around every beautiful avenue

—— Guardian

A brilliantly plotted and occasionally hallucinatory novel, in which the author's genius for literary ventriloquism is shown off to startling effect.

—— New Statesman

Paris Echo doesn’t disappoint… Faulks is doing what he does best, marrying careful historical research with a good ear for dialogue

—— Melissa Katsoulis , The Times

[An] exquisite book... a deeply affecting, wholly unsolemn treatment of some of the 20th century's darkest moments.

—— Daily Mail

The prowess of his storytelling makes him a graceful guide through "the great world of the past"... Cunningly crafted, Faulks's fictional bridge between the French past and present has its sentimental side.

—— Financial Times

There is humour and humanity in this bold, perceptive novel.

—— Daily Express

Both thoughtful and thought-provoking with memorable characters and a profound sense of the past in the present

—— Hannah Beckerman , S Magazine, Sunday Express

Here is Paris in all its beauty and squalor, its blood-stained history and its ability to instil in its lover a sense of the true sweetness of life. So this intelligent, moving, often disturbing novel is also really a love letter to Paris and indeed to France.

—— The Scotsman

There is much to learn from Paris Echo about the city’s complex identity, and about the way we view the past.

—— Sunday Times

Faulks is a fine descriptive writer and evokes Paris splendidly

—— Daily Telegraph

Paris Echo is an enjoyable and highly readable novel. Faulks has an easy-going style and he draws you seemingly without effort into the world he creates. He has a knowing humour too…In part the novel is a love letter to Paris, but it is also the latest product of Faulk’s long-standing and fascinating engagement with the devastating events of the 20th century.

—— Literary Review

This intelligent, moving, often disturbing novel is also really a love letter to Paris – and, indeed, to France

—— i paper

Faulks excels at creating well-rounded characters.

—— Good Housekeeping

An intriguing guide to the many layers of Parisien life.

—— Anthony Gardner , Mail on Sunday

Master storytelling... [An] intriguing and moving story that shows how the future is shaped by the past.

—— Women & Home

Immersive

—— The Spectator

A lovely novel by a writer who lives and breathes France

—— Saga Magazine

Another terrific, intelligent read from Faulks

—— Reader's Digest

A gripping book that I devoured in about three days; this dark book reminds us of the history that lurks around every street corner

—— Claudia Jacobs , Palatinate

Gaël Faye makes us smile, despite the seriousness of his words

—— Médiapart

What is autobiographical, and what imagined? In the end it doesn’t matter, when he Gaël Faye gives life to the lost land of his childhood, with poetry and modesty

—— Agence France Presse Mondiales

Small Country is a stirring and graceful tale of stolen innocence and fragmented identity. Hopeful, raw and deeply human, it is a modern classic in the making.

—— France Today

An excellent novel, a model of restraint and quiet literary sophistication

—— The Times

Cherry, Nico Walker’s outstanding debut, is a hard-hitting, ghoulishly funny novel about drug addiction, war and bank robbery.

—— Washington Post

Heartbreaking, unadorned, radically absent of pretense, Cherry is the debut novel America needs now, a letter from the frontlines of opioid addiction and, almost subliminally, a war story.

—— Lea Carpenter, author of Eleven Days and Red, White, Blue

Nico Walker’s Cherry is a wrenching, clear-eyed stare-down into the abyss of war, addiction and crime, a dark tumble into scumbaggery, but it’s also deeply humane and truly funny. That is one of the reasons I love it so much: it makes you laugh and ache at the same time, in the manner of the great Denis Johnson.

—— Dan Chaon, author of Ill Will

One of the most exciting new American novelists.

—— Men's Journal

Heavily indebted to the profane blood, guts, bullets, and opiate-strewn absurdities dreamed up by Thomas McGuane, Larry Brown, and Barry Hannah, Cherry tells a story that feels infinitely more real, and undeniably tougher than the rest.

—— A.V. Club

A bruising dispatch from the frontline of the American opioid crisis… the final quarter [of Cherry] rushes by in a cold sweat.

—— Anthony Cummins , Daily Mail

[An] incendiary debut… Nico Walker writes with real rhythm, exhibiting a poet’s discrimination about adjectival choice and the relative length of clauses. It is a rare and remarkable achievement to turn such suffering into a novel of such finely calibrated beauty.

—— Lucian Robinson , Times Literary Supplement

A gritty, addictive read.

—— Chloe Cherry , Face

I think everyone should read it – it is so horrific.

—— Kirsty Wark , Lady

A well-received return to form

—— Charlotte Heathcote , Daily Express

Astonishingly bold novel… [It] is Amis’s best work in years

—— Mail on Sunday

Amis’s best work since Money

—— Richard Susskind , The Times
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