A self-described Francophile since the age of nine, Rosecrans Baldwin had always dreamed of living in France. So when an offer presented itself to work at a Parisian ad agency, he couldn't turn it down―even though he had no experience in advertising, and even though he hardly spoke French.
But the Paris that Rosecrans and his wife, Rachel, arrived in wasn't the romantic city he remembered, and over the next eighteen months, his dogged American optimism was put to the test: at work (where he w...