The Madeleine Project - by Clara Beaudoux (Paperback)

About the Book

An audacious work of investigative journalism that reads like a graphic novel for the digital age.

Book Synopsis

"This extraordinary little book touched me deeply. Part graphic novel, part literary archeology, the author slowly unpacks a dusty cellar, and brings her subject to life. Even Madeleine's recipes have risen. Who would have guessed Twitter could be so poetic."
--Elizabeth Bard, author of Lunch in Paris: A Love Story, with Recipes and Picnic in Provence

A young woman moves into a Paris apartment and discovers a storage room filled with the belongings of the previous owner, a certain Madeleine who died in her late nineties, and whose treasured possessions nobody seems to want. In an audacious act of journalism driven by personal curiosity and humane tenderness, Clara Beaudoux embarks on The Madeleine Project, documenting what she finds on Twitter with text and photographs, introducing the world to an unsung twentieth-century figure. Along the way, she uncovers a Parisian life indelibly marked by European history. This is a graphic novel for the Twitter age, a true story that encapsulates one woman's attempt to live a life of love and meaning together with a contemporary quest to prevent that existence from slipping into oblivion. Through it all, The Madeleine Project movingly chronicles, and allows us to reconstruct, intimate memories of a bygone era.

Clara Beaudoux is a Paris-based journalist for the France Info news network. The Madeleine Project has been wildly popular in France. You can follow her on Twitter at @Clarabdx.

Reading group guide to The Madeleine Project, as well as a related recipe booklet, is available free of charge at newvesselpress.com.

Review Quotes

"This extraordinary little book touched me deeply. Part graphic novel, part literary archeology, the author slowly unpacks a dusty cellar, and brings her subject to life. Even Madeleine's recipes have risen. Who would have guessed Twitter could be so poetic."
--Elizabeth Bard, author of Lunch in Paris: A Love Story, with Recipes and Picnic in Provence

"In a time when platforms like Twitter seem more dangerous than hopeful, Clara Beaudoux's magnificent The Madeleine Project offers respite ... a sweet, respectful ode to an ordinary life. It stands as an antidote to pessimism around the social media age--which does not, as it turns out, prevent us from forming bonds, but in fact may enable us to build them across time and space."
--Foreword Reviews (Starred Review)

"This magical book tells history in a brilliant, original way for the 21st century and is a deeply moving reconstruction of an ordinary life whereby Madeleine becomes an unforgettable heroine. I loved this book and shall read it again and again."
--Anne Sebba, author of Les Parisiennes: How the Women of Paris Lived, Loved, and Died Under Nazi Occupation

"I opened the book out of curiosity and could not stop reading until the end. The Madeleine Project is a wonderfully original and, for the author, a clearly obsessive project which resuscitates an ordinary life in an extraordinary way. It's as if Clara met Madeleine's ghost in the cellar and embarked on a long and illuminating conversation with her."
--Alan Riding, former correspondent for The New York Times and author of And The Show Went On: Cultural Life in Nazi-Occupied Paris

"A life story in objects, it is both a pictorial biography and an illustrated catalogue of everyday things ... A slice of social history is conveyed through the life of an unknown woman who is not a celebrity - for a refreshing change! ... The book also evokes a very real side of Paris not seen in tourist brochures ... like a hidden treasure that asks us what is truly valuable?"
--BookBlast

"Turns the spotlight on an ordinary Parisian, whose experience reveals what it was like coming of age during World War II ... a voyeuristic delight, fit for anyone who relishes pawing through boxes of forgotten family treasures."
--Library Journal

"Beaudoux's exploration of Madeleine grows poignant as she moves from casual speculation to focused investigation and interviewing her neighbors, ultimately elevating the woman's humble life into something inexplicably familiar."
--Shelf Awareness

"Techy bookworms will appreciate this endearing tale--told through tweets translated from French to English--about what Clara Beaudoux discovers in a storage space left behind by a previous tenant."
--TimeOut Chicago

"Reconstructs Madeleine's life and loves in a moving and absorbing manner."
--The Irish Independent

"Having stumbled upon a time capsule in a Paris storage room, Clara Beaudoux tweeted the contents to the world. Her texts and intriguing photos of artifacts were then melded to create a unique and engaging biography."
--Charles Kaiser, author of The Cost of Courage and 1968 in America

"This book first delights the brain, then takes over the heart. Tweets turn into literature right before our eyes. As the posts and meticulous photos unfold, the writer deepens her own identity, even as the dead Madeleine emerges in all her eccentric humanity."
--Elizabeth Kendall, author of Autobiography of a Wardrobe and American Daughter

"This is a book that makes connections: between generations, between hand written letters from decades ago and the digital age genre of the tweet, between an era that feels lost to us and our daily reality, between our view of history as impersonal, and our sense of each individual's history ... This widening of our perception to include connection with those around us--especially those who may be different from us--may be the greatest gift that The Madeleine Project gives us."
--Cleaver Magazine

"Brings the past into the present in a wildly creative and imaginative way. This story is truly special and will stay with you long after you put the book down."
--Samantha Vérant, author of Seven Letters from Paris and How to Make A French Family

"Simply magical ... Words and images, magnified in this book, are woven together in small strokes to create two moving portraits of women."
--Lire

"A beautiful book that bears witness. An original compilation of traces, thoughts and photos that form the strata of our collective memory."
--Télérama

"A strange but staggering experience."
--Le Figaro littéraire

"A hymn to recovered memory."
--Elle

About the Author

Clara Beaudoux is a Paris-based journalist for the France Info news network. Her documentation of The Madeleine Project gained thousands of followers on Twitter when she initiated it in November 2015.

Alison Anderson is a novelist and a translator whose previous translations include The 6:41 to Paris and The Elegance of the Hedgehog. She lives in Buchillon, Switzerland.