Paris is the setting for Nic Sheff’s three-week summer language program, a brief period that appears, from his phone calls, to be going well before his return unsettles his father. The city’s significance in the memoir rests on that contrast: the promise of study, new friends, and independence gives way to a homecoming marked by silence and concern, without the account establishing what happened during the visit.

The summer program

Toward the end of the school year, Nic’s French teacher encourages him to apply for a summer program at the American University in Paris. Nic has a notable ear for the language: memorization comes easily, and he can produce a fluid Parisian accent, while his stepmother, Karen, helps him build a store of French slang. His father and mother, Vicki, confer and decide to send him.

Nic spends much of June in Los Angeles, then travels to Paris for the three-week session. His reports by phone sound cheerful. He says that his French is improving, that he has made good friends, and that he has landed a part in a student film. In one call he says, “I love it here, but I miss all of you,” and sends his love to the younger children. The account offers these details as evidence of a successful visit, but only through Nic’s brief communications with home.

The return

When the program ends, Nic flies home and his father meets him at the airport. The first impression is not of a triumphant student returning from Paris: Nic has grown taller, but his hair is shaggy and unkempt, dark circles shadow his eyes, and his father thinks he looks grayer. His manner seems sullen, and his father asks what is wrong. Nic replies, “Nothing. I'm fine,” before his father asks whether something happened in Paris. The narrative supplies no answer that explains the change.

Within days, Nic complains of stomach pain, so his father makes an appointment with the family doctor. After an hour-long examination, the doctor tells them that Nic has an ulcer. The diagnosis follows the homecoming, but the memoir does not establish that the Paris program caused it or explain whether the illness accounts for Nic’s altered appearance and mood.

Narrative significance

Paris is presented through a compact sequence of anticipation, upbeat reports, and uneasy return rather than as an extended portrait of the city. The student film, improving French, and new friendships make the trip seem like an ordinary success; the airport scene interrupts that impression with signs of distress that neither Nic’s reassurance nor the subsequent diagnosis resolves. Paris therefore marks a gap in what the family knows: the visit is reported as enjoyable, but the homecoming makes clear that its apparent success does not tell the whole story.