Despite the sadly tragic chronicling of his wife’s fading journey with Alzheimer’s disease, Scott Carpenter’s latest book “Paris Lost and Found: A Memoir of Love” manages to weave in moments that sparkle as brightly as The City of Light itself.
Carpenter, a French literature and creative writing professor at Carleton College, captured those personal, tender moments into a deftly crafted tale that blends poignancy, loss and grief with humor, joy and hope.
In a phone conversation Monday morning, Carpenter told the Northfield News that he had just returned from Paris the day before and had been there during most of the Paralympic Games.
The author said his apartment in the 13th Arrondissement allows him the chance to experience “Paris of the everyday” a far cry from the fancy central hub of the world capital.
Carpenter, who said he became fluent in French years ago, has been traveling back and forth between Paris and Minnesota for nearly 35 years. He and wife Anne Maple moved their family to Northfield in 1990 when he joined the faculty at Carleton. As director of the French study abroad program for many years, he said his family became accustomed to “the crazy yo-yoing between the small, midwestern town and the French capital.”
That transcontinental life changed abruptly in 2014 when Anne was first diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease. “With my wife losing her memory, we went from living in the most unforgettable city in the world to a place that she was forgetting,” he said.
Anne Maple, who taught English at Shattuck-St, Mary’s School in Faribault for 15 years and served on the Northfield School Board from 2009-2016, had a great passion for education, and a specific desire to help Northfield schools succeed in providing the best possible education for its children. She also served as co-chair for 2006 Northfield Schools Levy Campaign as well as core committee member for the 2003 Northfield Schools Levy Campaign.
The Carpenter’s son Paul graduated from Northfield High School in 2007, and their daughter Muriel graduated from NHS in 2012.
To adequately capture the sequence of Anne’s gradual disappearance Carpenter structured his latest book in three sections, the end, the middle and the beginning.
“I was alone and floundering in the city until the city came to the rescue,” he said.
During his wife’s decline, Carpenter describes how he navigated through the complexities of grief and solitude before beginning a quest for new urban adventures that would eventually bring to light new and surprising sides of Paris.
“The brain is like the Eiffel Tower,” he said. “That image came to mind for me remembering the first time I visited. I was 10 years old and my brother and I raced down the circular flights of stairs. When we stopped to catch our breath, I looked out the window and we were nowhere near close to the bottom.”
But Anne’s gradual memory loss also gave them a little bit of time to find joy in the midst of loss.
Now, in his last year of teaching at Carleton before he becomes professor emeritus next year in retirement, Carpenter said he was excited to embark on a 40-plus book tour this fall that will take him across the country visiting bookstores, libraries and colleges.
Carpenter’s previous book “French Like Moi: A Midwesterner in Paris” won the Next Generation Indie Book Award and an earlier book “Theory of Remainders: A Novel” is currently in development to become a major motion picture. He is collaborating with the screenwriter who lives in the UK.
IF YOU GO
Carleton College professor Scott Dominic Carpenter will read and sign his latest book “Paris Lost and Found: A Memoir of Love” on Tuesday, Sept. 17 at 7 p.m. at the Grand Event Center, 316 Washington St. in Northfield. Sponsored by Content Bookstore, the event features the author in conversation with former poets laureate D.E. Green and Becky Boling before answering questions from the audience.
The author said he also plans to read and sign his book at a Carleton campus event Sept. 24.
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