The gauche caviar are not yet dead.

Thrust into the world of the French bourgeoisie on Paris’ Left Bank, a young Cecily (foreign, Anglophone and buoyed by the purchased confidence that only oversized millinery brings) captures the politics, romance and witty foibles of those who philosophise over €4 coffees at the celebrated Café de Flore.

Cecily is intent on penetrating her new world through powerful friendships with the men who love her, surviving in a semi-imagined economy where champagne and philosophy are more freely available than reason.

Best friend Alexander serves as the main foil to Cecily’s café society — a travelling bookseller who sustains himself on Yerba Mate and malaise. Writing to each other between Portland Oregon and Paris — the two protagonists provide unlikely and often hilarious voices of reflection, in a culture that seems to exist between sometime in the 1920s and now.