Book review: Heartfelt writing collaboration making link from Cork to Paris

Lynda Marron's 'Last Chance in Paris' had been in the making for decades before a word was put down on the page

Lynda Marron: Inspired by Paris having worked there as an au pair.

• Last Chance in Paris 
• Lynda Marron 
• Eriu, €13.99

The kitchen table is the heart of many a home, where meals are served and eaten, homework is done, bills are paid, tears are shed and important decisions are made. 

For Lynda Marron, it was where she eventually sat down to begin a new chapter in her life, one that had been in the making for decades before a word was put down on the page.

In Marron’s debut novel Last Chance in Paris, Cork couple Ronan and Claire visit the French capital in an attempt to revive their marriage, and while there, their lives briefly intertwine with a cast of characters including a US film producer and a Ukrainian refugee. 

Partly inspired by Marron’s own life, the book also represents the culmination of 30 years of hopes, dreams and heartbreaking loss. 

Every book has a story behind it but Marron’s is particularly poignant, and absolutely life-affirming. It also happens to include a cameo by a famous actor.

“I feel like there are 100 different stories behind this book and 100 different ways I can tell the story,” she tells me from the aforementioned kitchen table in her home in the Cork suburb of Bishopstown.

The seeds for Last Chance in Paris were sown when Marron took a job as an au pair with a family who lived near the city. She was 20 years old and in her second year studying science at UCC.

“I just had the most amazing time. I was with this young family with three kids. They were madly in love and just a model of happiness.” 

Every Saturday I got the train into Paris by myself and just wandered around. I had never really been anywhere. And I was just flabbergasted by it, it really lit me up.

Marron urged Michael, her boyfriend back in Cork, to come over and see her but he couldn’t. She went home and eventually they got married.

“But there was always this little thing between us that he never came to Paris. He gave me a notebook on our fifth wedding anniversary, and wrote on the inside ‘for when I take you to Paris’.

“And I have all these little things that I was writing for the years between — it took about 15 years after that before we finally went to Paris — things I wanted to do, wanted to see. I was working towards it all along.”

In that time, Marron and her husband had four children. Before they had their fourth child, Marron had a miscarriage, a traumatic experience which informs the central plot of Last Chance in Paris. 

“I fell apart. I was sitting on the kitchen floor, bawling my eyes out for hours. Michael was shocked by how broken I was, and it wasn’t long after that he said he was booking tickets to Paris.

"I said ‘absolutely no way, forget it, I don’t know what you’re thinking’.”

The couple eventually made it to Paris on their 20th wedding anniversary. 

Our kids were 17, 15, 11 and three, and we left them in the house with the dog. It just seemed like the time to go. And everything went perfectly. It was beautiful.

One serendipitous incident suggested the universe was also trying to tell her something. When they visited the famous bookshop Shakespeare and Company, a handsome American man offered to take their photo. Later, they attended mass in Notre Dame.

“It happened to be a huge requiem mass for a bishop who died the previous year. There were about 60 priests up on the altar and a huge choir. 

"It was amazing. At the end, the organist played for ages and all the priests paraded out. 

"The music swelled and when he hit the last huge note, the lights went out and you were just left with candle smoke and incense.

"And the man in the row in front of us turned around and said ‘best show in town’. And it was the same man who had taken our photo outside Shakespeare and Company. 

"I got chills. We were walking down the banks of the river and I said, ‘gosh, that was amazing, it was just like something in a novel’. And Michael said ‘write it’. But I didn’t write it.”

It took the kindness and support of a fierce and determined friend to give Marron the push she needed. Finbarr Livesey, a college friend whom she had also taken to her debs, was a lecturer at Cambridge and when he published a book on globalisation, she got in contact to congratulate him. 

At this stage, Marron was reviewing books on Instagram. Finbarr told her that he was working on a fiction book and asked for her input. Soon, he was encouraging her to write too and send him her work.

One serendipitous incident suggested the universe was also trying to tell author Lynda Marron something when she attended a Mass service in Notre Dame.

“For years, everyone had been telling me to write something. But he just had the character that if he told you to do something, it got through.” 

Months into their writing collaboration, in February 2018, Finbarr was diagnosed with multiple myeloma.

“He was desperate to get his book written. So we spent the next 18 months mostly working on his book and me emailing him. It was lovely because we had a relationship entirely in writing, which was very valuable to me.”

As his illness progressed, Finbarr was unable to continue writing. But he was still able to read, and Marron wanted to give him something that would have special meaning.

“He was reading the West Wing scripts, because he was a fanatic, and I had used up every present idea that I could come up with.” 

She contacted the actor Martin Sheen, who played the central role of US president Bartlett in the show, through the production company of his son, Emilio Estevez.

“I wrote a long heartfelt letter to Martin Sheen and by return of post, I got a five-page letter on headed notepaper to Fin that was just the most beautiful, well-composed, heartfelt thing, it was really lovely.”

And there was a little note to me and a big photograph for Fin, signed by president Bartlett and Martin Sheen. It arrived the week before he died. And it just gave everyone something else to talk about.

Marron and her husband got to spend a whole day with Finbarr before he died, a memory that is precious to her.

“Michael and I flew over to Cambridge, and we went to the hospice and we knew there wasn’t a huge amount of time left. 

"And Charlotte, Finbarr’s wife, who is a beautiful person, she gave us the whole day, which I thought was incredibly generous when they didn’t have a lot of days left. 

"And we sat there talking about rugby, what we thought our kids might do and how much courage it takes to do something artistic. 

"And he looked me in the eye again with that convincing way that he had and he said ‘you just try and you try again’. And it just went in.”

Finnbarr had requested that Marron give the eulogy at his memorial service in Magdalen College in Cambridge. It was a moment she was dreading but she was determined to do it for her friend.

“I learned it off by heart, and I did it and it gave me courage. It got me over the thing that was stopping me from writing.” 

Marron sent a copy of the eulogy to Sheen, and they have continued their correspondence since. 

“When I finally had the novel finished, I wrote a letter and asked him if he would read it. He knew the whole story and he said absolutely.

"So I sent it and the next thing I got was a card that said, ‘I’m halfway through and so far so good’, which I thought was great. So that’s it, it was all written in two Aisling copybooks. And it is eventually, end of the story, a real book.”

And so the memory of her friend and champion Finbarr lives on in her book. 

As does that of the baby daughter she lost. When she looks up from the table where she writes, there is a reminder of the love that continues to inspire her.

“There’s a crab apple tree outside the window and that’s her. Whenever I look up, she’s there.”

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