The Waitress Was New
by: Dominique Fabre (Author), Jordan Stump (Translator)

Softcover. NY, Archipelago Books, 1st US, 2008, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Softcover in pictorial wrappers, 117 pages. This "charming . . . short account of ordinary goings-on in a French cafe" explores love, work, loneliness, and aging as it follows the daily life of a middle-aged Parisian bartender. Pierre is a veteran bartender in a cafe in the outskirts of Paris. He observes his customers as they come and go--the young man who drinks beer as he reads Primo Levi, the fellow who from time-to-time strips down and plunges into the nearby Seine, the few regulars who eat and drink there on credit--sizing them up with great accuracy and empathy. Pierre doesn't look outside more than necessary; he prefers to let the world come to him. Clean copy.