Book Info
Confessions of a Concierge: Madame Lucie’s History of Twentieth-Century France
by Bonnie G. Smith (1985)
Genre: Nonfiction, Memoir, History
LibraryThing: https://www.librarything.com/work/1238610/
Acquired from: Capitol Hill Books, Denver, Colorado, USA ($6.50) [see also: Indie Bookstore Visit Log]
Started reading: November 6, 2025
Finished reading: November 13, 2025
Review
An interesting memoir/biography of a woman who grew up in early 20th century France and lived through to the 1980s. Focuses almost entirely on the subject (the concierge) and not so much on the people who live in her building, and in fact the “memoir” part ends when she gets the job and then the “biography” part starts when she’s been working there for 40 years. The gap was noticeable but I assume it happened because the author couldn’t get her to talk about that time period as much as she did the before-concierge job part.
Reading Notes
Copyright page says the following:
The paper in this book meets the guidelines for permanence and durability of the Committee on Production Guidelines for Book Longevity of the Council on Library Resources.
I’ve never seen that before, but sure enough the pages aren’t yellowed and are sturdier than many other paperbacks, more like a nice hardcover paper.
Page xvi: Quite a long-winded intro on why this story deserves to be told by a historian and why it’s important to historians or whatever which I think must be a sign of the time it was written (1985,) because nowadays it’s just taken for granted that first-person historical info is important and wanted?? Published by Yale so maybe something there too– like author had to argue why it’s academic, maybe?
Page 3: First part of book is written in first-person POV from POV of Madame Lucie, and covers her childhood and adult years up to becoming a concierge. Second part is third person from POV of historian and covers her life that overlaps with the historian.
Page 12: Can’t find a “Queen Navolo” but there was a Queen Ranavalona III around that time period: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ranavalona_III
Page 14: Separation of church and state apparently means you can have religious schools but the teachers can’t wear religious garb? I’m gonna have to Wikipedia this later for more info.
Page 19: “little bugs” in their hair from lack of regular washing, but it wasn’t lice. French term punaises — which a quick search pulls up either stink bugs or bed bugs, neither of which I think someone would tolerate in their hair for months.
Page 38: First boyfriend died in the war, second one was already married. My god, it’s like a novel!
Page 51: Both her parents were buried in Pere Lachaise cemetery. I’ve been there!
Page 60: Secret stash of 700 francs in 1925 = worth about $645 USD in today’s money
Page 63: Ford factory workers (and their families) were evacuated from Paris during WW2 and sent to Bordeaux! I didn’t know that.
Page 76: Kitten murder! Gah 😖
Page 88: About a Californian painter living in Mme Lucile’s building:
Harton always returned to Paris, glad to be back to the French style and a place where he, like most expatriates, could feel his freedom by not belonging to the society.
Page 129: Noticing quite a few typos/missing ending punctuation in this part of the book.
Page 151: Interesting theory that as Mme Lucie aged her memory started to go and as it went her focus became her physical body because that’s all she could see/interact with. On the other hand ending the book with the main “character” sitting with her underwear around her ankles because she couldn’t bend to pull them back up is a major bummer.
See also: Books Read (2025) / All Reading Logs
