The President’s Hat by Antoine Laurain
A review by Pete
Schulte
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| Photo Courtesy of Tattered Cover |
I
recently read and reviewed for this blog Antoine Laurain’s The Red Notebook.
I enjoyed it so much that I wanted to read another of his novels. It is my
pleasure to report that I feel the same way about The President’s Hat.
One
of my grandfathers was a milliner. And although for the most part I go sans
chapeau, I still have a strange fascination with hats. That said, The
President’s Hat seemed like the kind of book I’d find most appealing.
In
a 1980’s Paris brasserie, a down on his luck and down in the dumps man decides
to treat himself to a nice seafood dinner while his wife and son are out of
town. This man, Daniel Mercier, looks up to find the President of the France,
Francois Mitterrand, entering the brasserie with two others. They sit at the very
next table beside Daniel, who plays it cool the best he can while secretly
hanging on their every word and action. The dinner ends without fanfare and the
President takes his leave. But one item has been left behind -- the President’s
hat.
Daniel,
usually a law-abiding citizen, does something out of character. He puts the hat
on his own head and walks out of the restaurant. After that, only good things
happen to him…until he leaves the hat on the train by mistake. This time a
young woman picks it up. She’s a writer
with a relationship problem. The hat (?) takes care of her troubles. Then it’s
on to a once ace perfumer who hasn’t created a decent scent in years, and then
to a bored art collector who suddenly breaks out of his shell and starts buying
works from a then-unknown abstract artist named Basquiat.
It’s
silly to think a mere hat could alter the course of one’s life. But sometimes
those new boots, or that special sweater, or that lucky ring, can perhaps give
you that little extra confidence to put you over the top. Or maybe that hat (a
black Homburg) really did have a bit of magic to it.
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| La Vie en Rose by Pete Schulte |
