A deeply personal account of a young Black woman who set out to shake up her life by moving abroad but got a lot more than she bargained for.
Surviving Paris is not Emily in Paris. It’s not a story of moving to the City of Light, meeting a dashing Frenchman, and raising beret-wearing enfants. It is not a romantic fantasy. It is a true story about a young, Black single woman and what happens when your Paris dream turns into a Paris nightmare.
After more than a decade as a journalist and television producer, Robin Allison Davis decided to shake up her life and move to France. But it wasn’t quite the life she expected. When she was just thirty-four, she was diagnosed with breast cancer. Surviving Paris recounts her journey from diagnosis through multiple surgeries to surviving the strictest Covid-19 lockdowns, only to be told her cancer had come back—and how she got to finding herself healthy again, including all the detours in between.
While this book is about cancer, it’s not just about survival. It's a love story about cancer. It's a story about Robin's love of adventure, her love of love, and her love for herself. Grounded yet irreverent, informative and anecdotal, Surviving Paris has laughter, sorrow, and some unforgettable cringe-worthy moments. It also has courage, surprises, and remarkable depths of heart.
Robin writes about the struggles of finding her community and family away from home, dating on Tinder with one boob, and learning to be the best advocate for her medical care in a culture she doesn't completely understand, and that doesn’t understand her. Surviving Paris details the good, the bad, and the ugly of expatriating to Paris and one American woman’s unexpected and often hilarious journey—and her precious second chance at life.
This is not a fairytale—it's a raw, unflinching, and often hilarious look at what it really means to start over.
- A Fish Out of Water Story: From baffling workplace politics to a medical system she doesn’t understand, Robin’s experience is the opposite of a Parisian dream.
- Raw and Unflinching Honesty: This is a breast cancer survivor story that doesn't pull punches, tackling everything from post-mastectomy dating on Tinder to the terror of a recurrence during a global pandemic.
- Culture Shock and Community: Follow one Black woman's struggle and triumph in finding her community and family far from home, in a culture that doesn’t always understand her.
- More Than a Cancer Memoir: It's a story filled with laughter, unforgettable cringe-worthy moments, and the profound journey of learning to love oneself against all odds.