David Benjamin

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courtesy David Benjamin

Author David Benjamin with a Paris backdrop.

David Benjamin

media release:  Is author David Benjamin a Madisonian who hangs out in Paris, France or a Parisian who calls Madison home? 

Come by Barnes & Noble and find out. The author will highlight his recently published novel, Bistro Nights, set in the same neighborhoods, and famed Parisian terrain which he knows so well.

Benjamin has deep ties to both Madison—he’s a graduate of La Follette High School—and the great city of France, where he and his wife, journalist Junko Yoshida, have owned a garret on the Left Bank, with a view of Notre Dame, since 1995. 

Three of Benjamin’s oft-honored novels are set in Paris, but nine take place in Wisconsin, including three books based in Madison. 

Norman Gilliland, producer and presenter for Wisconsin Public Radio said of  Bistro Nights: “For the connoisseur of Parisian nightlife, the real and imagined adventures of Steve and Mie provide a pleasant immersion into the often whimsical goings-on among the lovers and thugs of the demimonde. For fans of dark, edgy humor, Bistro Nights is an enjoyable diversion from the harsh light of everyday life.”

In Bistro Nights, readers are treated to an annotated “guidebook” of the 25 real-life bistros, brasseries and bars that appear as locations throughout the story.

The novel showcases parallel dramas that take place a century apart. One story follows nosy journalists Steve and Mie on an intimate tour of Parisian bistros while also resurrecting a bygone era of cabarets and music halls.

The author who grew up (with no idea of Paris) in Tomah, Wisconsin—where two of his books, The Life and Times of the Last Kid Picked and Fat Vinny’s Forbidden Love, take place—has been publishing his Last Kid Books in Madison since 2019. His eighteen titles have earned 30 book awards in a dozen genres from seven different independent publishing organizations.