Please join us on-line via Zoom for a presentation and Q&A (In English) with Author Harriet Welty Rochefort on June 3rd at noon.

Harriet is a Paris-based author, and her novel "Final Transgression" takes us on a journey to France during and after World War 2. We hope you can join us for this insightful discussion. Harriet's book is widely available both in printed and on-line versions. I encourage you to try and read it prior to our event, but it is not necessary to join.

Two sisters, two lives. In Final Transgression, 85-year-old Caroline Aubry tells the tale of the
tragic wartime destiny of her beloved younger sister, Severine.

From their humble beginnings in a hamlet in the southwest of France to a castle where Severine becomes the protégée of the
beautiful countess who employs their parents, their trajectories differ. After the family moves to Paris, the pragmatic Caroline becomes a successful designer and the high-spirited Severine marries a rich jeweler . When WW2 breaks out and her collaborationist husband betrays her, the
headstrong Severine flees to the castle and the countess –– in spite of warnings about the risks
of traveling to an area that is a fierce battleground for rival groups of resisters, Nazis and
collaborators. Severine is beautiful and intelligent but obstinate and unaware, two traits that in
wartime will ultimately seal her fate.

The end of the war in France was a time for settling scores. Severine, an ordinary woman living in
extraordinary times, unwittingly hands the hangman’s noose to her enemies in one egregious
act––her final transgression.

Harriet will be joined and assisted by her Promotional Assistant, Maggie Mixon in the discussion and presentation.

Harriet Welty Rochefort grew up and was educated in the Midwest (B.A. University of Michigan,
Ann Arbor and M.S.J. Northwestern Medill School of Journalism). She has lived in France since 1973 with her French husband Philippe. They have 3 sons, Nicolas, a neurologist in Marseilles, Benjamin, a computer specialist in Montreal, David, an editor
and novelist (chez Gallimard NRF) in Paris, and 6 grandchildren.

An author, Harriet has written three humorous but informative books about her life in France. and
the cultural differences she has perceived as an American « embedded » in France.
Her bestselling account of her first impressions of France, French Toast: An American in Paris
Celebrates the Maddening Mysteries of the French, remained in hardcover for 11 years,
appearing in paperback in 2010. Diane Johnson, the bestselling author of Le Divorce, called
French Toast « a classic » and « the gold standard of books about the French ».

It was followed by French Fried: The Culinary Capers of an American in Paris, a personal
account of French wining and dining viewed from her mother-in-law’s kitchen and interviews with
leading French food and wine experts.

Her third book, Joie de Vivre (2012), delves into the French penchant for enjoying life with style
and panache. Publisher’s Weekly wrote that « Rochefort…is a foreign observer of what it means
to be French and, with wit and a unique insight, offers advice on loving life the way her adopted
country does. »

Book Discussion and Q&A with Author Harriet Welty Rochefort regarding her novel "Final Trangression"