"Paris Noire" is a complex tale about life for people of color in post-WWII Paris. The main character, Marie-Therese, is an older woman with two grown children. As they deal with their own serious love affairs and attendant complications, she negotiates her own feelings about falling in love with an American military officer.Howard examines the relative freedoms enjoyed by people of color in France by comparison to their contemporaries in the United States. She also paints a picture of complicated relationships, the French Resistance and religious life in France during the period. We see these issues through the eyes of her characters, who felt like real people to me. Some of them were beautiful people, some of them plain, some educated and some not so. Every character was well-rounded and interesting -- even the people who were not so nice.I found the book to be both enlightening and entertaining. Highly recommended for those who enjoy literary or historical fiction and who are interested in this time period.(Review based on uncorrected advance proof.)
