Paris echo is a very messed-up novel. It brings together various people, ideas and strands of stories in a way that might resemble life, messy and disorganized. The first part of the book is a quick and enjoyable read, but it seems the author lost interest with his own story, and the later parts of the story are ill-connected, sentimental, and a mishmash of material that you might expect from a writer such as Faulks, e.g. by bringing in a lot of unsorted, unclear historical material about the French resistence. The story if often so unclear that I lost what I was reading, and the connections between the main characters are highly unlikely.

This novel cannot even stand in the shadow of Faulks earlier novels. ( )

Rounded up from 3.5 stars. An interesting concept, but the unfinished threads of stories and confusing narrative trail made what could have been a vibrant portrait of Paris fall short. ( )

Tariq,19 years old, has run away from his home in Algeria. He is frustrated with his father and stepmother, disengaged with his college studies and has a yen to walk the streets of Paris as his deceased mother had, she having been raised in France. Along the way he meets Sabrine, who is making her way to England. When Sabrine falls ill on the street, a woman takes her in to her home. The woman is Hannah, an American postdoctoral graduate. She has recently arrived in Paris to research the lives of French women during the years of Nazi occupation. Hannah has a spare room and when Sabrine moves on she arranges for Tariq to take over her lodging.
Initially the two have little in common, however Tariq speaks and understands French better than Hannah and at times assists her with translation. Hannah equally finds that Tariq is only too happy to absorb Hannah's historical knowledge about Paris. He learns not only about the war years but the fraught relationship between Algeria and France, including the massacre of thousands of Algerians during the 1960's on the streets of Paris. Tariq becomes obsessed with travelling on the underground metro and introduces the reader to a different view of Paris, not the tourist attractions, but the many outlying suburbs, home to immigrants from all over Europe. He finds work in a fast food place which enables him to pay his way and save for a flight back home.
Hannah, meanwhile, has laid to rest the ghost of her failed love affair in Paris ten years earlier and has reconnected with a friend from those years.
I am forever hopeful of discovering the author has returned to the successful heights of [Birdsong]. This one though I am struggling to score. There was a much to enjoy, although I was disappointed we learnt no more about Tariq's mother and the aspects of magical realism when Tariq connects with Victor Hugo and steps back in time to engage with some of the women Hannah is researching, became a little hard to connect with. I struggled also to recognise the changing narrative voice as there was nothing to distinguish them. I feel a novel about the France - Algeria relationship would hold much appeal. ( )

DId not allow me to identify too well with the characters - maybe my cultural prejudice/inhibitions. Life threads seemed to go nowhere - maybe the beauty of the book that life is a little like that? Wrapped thraeads up nicely at the end. Enjoyed but not a page turner for me. Paris background was fun. ( )

Sebastian Faulks is on of the best literary figures of his generation and The Paris Echo proves it. ( )