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Hey there!
Thank you so much for taking the time to subscribe! As my debut novel continues through the editing process, I hope to give you some insight on the people you’ll meet in the world I’ve created.
— Lindsay J. Bennett
Tour de France? What Does That Have to Do with Your Book?
I’m going to be real honest, I was not anticipating putting another newsletter out until later this week after I’ve (finally) done my cover reveal.
[An aside, social media marketing? Hard. I feel like I am the most annoying person in the world but APPARENTLY I am TOLD you just have to keep posting, so preemptive sorry for all the Instagram posts/reels/stories/reposts]
So, back to the Tour de France. You’re getting this newsletter tonight because I was inspired by stage 7. A quick recap for those of you who don’t know and prefer to know as little as possible, the Tour de France is a 21 day bike race that takes place across all of France. It is one of three major bike races (one in Italy, one in Spain). Each year, destinations change, routes change, orders change. This year, stage 7 happened to be in Bordeaux.
I am in my yellow dress (robe jaune) to honor the leader of the Tour de France who gets to wear the yellow jersey (maillot jaune). That picture happened to be taken July 7, 2023 in… you guessed it! BORDEAUX!
The Significance
As I built my book and the surrounding dystopian society that was taking place within America, and namely in Chicago, I wanted to be able to help provide a prospective of someone who was not IN the mix. My thought was this: what we see/are told about what is happening in China, in Russia, in Cuba, in North Korea is VERY different than what the people who reside in those counties are being told. The opposite is also true; many of the citizens who have never traveled to America — or Chicago — are left with a perspective of what it must be like based on the media they consume. Leaving in an authoritarian society, I imagine that a person who identifies that their government may not be honest still may not have the entire perspective of what is truly happening. People living outside that regime? They may not have a full grasp on how dire or how manipulative or WHY those in power are behaving the way they are.
Enter Amélie.
Amélie is one of the five women that you meet that will be telling the story of her friendship to the other women, her involvement with the government, and her perspective of the world. What sets Amélie apart from the others? She is the only one not located in Chicago. She, given her mother’s French heritage, had the ability to gain citizenship and flee prior to the takeover. She is living on the outside, worried for her friends, and observing how the US/Chicago/our leadership is viewed by France/reported about by the rest of the world.
Bordeaux
When we traveled here back in 2023, it felt magical. I could see the appeal of living in Paris, sure, but Bordeaux felt extra-special. There were so many incredible places along the way. When I decided to have Amélie live abroad, I wanted to fulfill a few things. First, I wanted a location that I had been to that I could describe/relay to others accurately. While I’m endlessly impressed with the people who write about locations they have never been, that isn’t one of my strong suits. (Did I try to convince my husband we needed to go back in 2024 and 2025 for “research?” Yes I did. Was I successful? All the photos are from 2023, so…)
Place des Quinconces
A pretty square that we spent time in was Place des Quinconces. It was actually where they had set up a lot of tents and activities related to the Tour de France. It was BUSTLING. Situated within Place des Quinconces was this HUGE elaborate statue called Monument aux Girondins. This monument was built in honor of a political group that was targeted and murdered during the French Revolution.
It felt fitting to mention this within my book as an homage to such a heinous piece of French history as I imagined what a horrific piece of American history could look like for an ex-pat on the outside.
This statue was removed in 1942 to be replaced by cannons etc during WW2 (not by the choice of the French), but was later re-instated and renovated.
(And if you want another really cool piece of history of Bordeaux as they triumphed over Nazi Germany, they have this place called Les Bassins des Lumières, where they have taken an old German U-Boat bunker and created a digital art space! This is not featured in my book.)
And Now, an Excerpt
(Read no further if you want to enjoy my work in its entirety. There are no spoilers in this.)
Despite the obstacles, Amélie was lucky. Many of the French women her age had welcomed her warmly. They had initially started coffee sessions, therapeutic-style meet-and-greets at Peter Coffee Shop. She loved to walk down Rue Saint-James beneath the Grosse Cloche. It was as though she were entering through gates into the eighteen hundreds, then gained the very modern luxury of enjoying sips of an espresso and petit granola. When they quickly outgrew the coffee shop, the meeting relocated to Place des Quinconces. Now she regularly stopped for their cookie of the day at Peter Coffee, missing the camaraderie she felt from such a tight-knit group.
The new location was vast, with easy transportation access. It wasn’t lost on her the irony of the fountain towering above the square: Liberty, freeing herself from shackles as Deceit, Vice, and Ignorance fought in the water at her feet. She wondered if Liberty ever truly could escape from the pedestal to put a stop to the madness thrashing at her feet or if she was eternally condemned to watch, now with hands free but too high to reach the people below.