Petite Anglaise is the pseudonym of Catherine Sanderson, English blogger living in Paris and the author of a new book Petite Anglaise (published by Random House).
Catherine/Petite has an engaging and hilarious writing style, which appears perfectly fine-tuned in her book. You can appreciate my fandom here when I say that publishers often make the mistake of publishing bloggers and thinking that what’s compelling in a couple of paragraphs can be morphed into a full-length book. Such trepidation is not required when reading Petite Anglaise (book or blog). From blog to book really works for Petite Anglaise–a blog that sits on that fine line between reality and embellishment that is often prevalent in autobiography.
Quote: Here’s a quote from a recent blog post titled “Fraud”
I fully intended for this post to be a witty open letter to the person who stole my identity and used my bank card for an extravagant online shopping spree (total cost: 3.285,17). Or perhaps a song, in the style of Brassens, who in Stances un Cambrioleur so eloquently thanked the burglar who had the good taste to pay his house a visit.
It would have described my joy at receiving a letter from the Caisse d’Epargne, heavy with menace, which informed me, in typically verbose (but not particularly comprehensible) French, that having noticed repeated dysfonctionnements consecutifs a l’utilisation de ma carte bleue, I was invited to “regularise” the resulting overdraft. If not my card would be cancelled, my bank account immobilised, the Banque de France notified, and helicopters would be dispatched to hover outside my apartment window so that men in uniforms could shout at me over their loud hailers and/or airbourne snipers could get me in their sights.
The book chronicles the birth of the blog Petite Anglaise and the subsequent consequences. Catherine, a young Englishwoman in Paris, in love with all things French, is feeling a little less than loved by Mr. Frog (her husband) and less than in love with her job. The discontent and the discovery of blogging results in an anonymous blog Petite Anglaise. Catherine shares the intimate details of her life in what she hopes will be read by Mr. Frog but instead captures the attention of many bloggers and blog readers. Apparently 100,000 visitors per month.
And like all anonymous and wildly popular bloggers, Catherine eventually reveals herself at a blogger meetup. She develops some very well-formed relationships with her readers, one of which is a little too well formed and it rattles her family substantially and tempts her to abandon the real life she’s created. But I’m not going to tell you what happens to Mr. Frog and Tadpole (her daughter).
Petite Anglaise (on Amazon.ca) by Catherine Sanderson.