Heat of Paris, by Peter Breyer

The year is 1951. The setting is Paris. The civil rights, feminist and sexual revolutions of the 60s and 70s are yet to happen. Heat of Paris is about the confluence of these forces well before they become mainstream in America. They are played out through two young people, a 26-year-old white man from rural upstate New York and a 24-year-old Negro woman from Harlem. Franz, a young soldier fresh from the battlefield of World War II, travels to Paris as a stringer for a new start-up magazine. There he meets Christie, a master’s student researching the French writer Georg Sand. This chance meeting leads to a uniquely American post-war love story full of adventure, tenderness, and hope for a better future. Their struggle foreshadows the struggle of America which is yet to come.