Recently escaped from her German family and student husband, Stendhal ekes out a living as a cultural journalist in Europe's most cultured city. She walks Paris at night dressed as a boy, has friends and lovers among artists (Meret Oppenheim) and writers (Christiane Rochefort, Monique Wittig), and falls under the spell of the mercurial actress Claude, who has all of Paris talking. At the same time, she finds herself in the crosshairs of an alluring stranger who seems to appear everywhere and nowhere at once. There are mysteries with and without clues: Is sexual obsession a way to avoid the risk of love?
Kiss Me Again, Paris was a finalist for the Lambda Literary Award for Lesbian Memoir. Winner of the 2018 International Book Award in the LGBTQ Non-Fiction category.
Renate Stendhal is the award-winning author of the photo biography Gertrude Stein: In Words and Pictures. After growing up in Berlin and Hamburg, she lived in Paris for almost two decades, pursuing ballet and underground theater, translating American women authors and writing cultural reviews for the German radio and press. Stendhal has published several books in Germany and in the United States, three of them co-authored with her life companion Kim Chernin. Her articles and essays have appeared internationally. She has a passion for country living with Kim, two dogs, and a small orchard, and she still loves to opine about opera and ballet, reviewing culture for diverse magazines.
"I had the chance of a lifetime to spend ten days in Hawaii at a friend's house in Kauai this past summer, and my prime, choice for literary companionship was Renate Stendhal Kiss Me Again, Paris. In escaping to an idyllic setting, I wanted a book that was nothing less than an equivalent paradise of gorgeous sentences perfectly timed to the entrances and exits of a story's characters. As a bildungsroman of an outsider who secures her place in a youthful microcosm of perspicacious romantic attraction, Stendhal's memoir manages to exceed the glow of its backdrop by reviving each instance of the author's recollections as if they breathed again in an ineluctable encounter with palpable imagination." - Bill Mohr
"Stendhal's] memoir is notable for a variety of reasons: it's a window into the gay female melee of the moment, and she has a particular way of recalling her encounters with luminaries. Some she names outright, like Meret Oppenheim and Pina Bausch; others' identities she keeps under wraps. It's a tactic that places the book in a category Stendhal playfully refers to as memoir à clef, a twist on the roman à clef: a novel with 'keys' to uncovering the real in the fictional." - AUTOSTRADDLE.COM
"Renate Stendhal's daring new book throbs with the pulse of Paris in the 1970s. We follow the adventures of a young German journalist as she covers the art scene and keeps an eye open for romance with other women. Written with verve, this book captures the sense of erotic excitement that Paris continues to inspire." - MARILYN YALOM, Author of How the French Invented Love and The Social Sex
"The thing about Renate Stendhal, for the reader of this book, is that she feels Paris in every fiber of her being. And she is able to carry the reader with her into all these delicious places, some well known and some known to few. The great thing is to relax and let her take you. It is a memorable journey." - HUGH VAN DUSEN, HarperCollins' Executive Editor
