Make Art Famous Again with Jo Piazza, author of The Parisian Heist

“Paris is a living postcard,” wrote Jo Piazza in The Parisian Heist. Reading this book is like another line in the book; I was “soaking in the journey instead of the destination.”

Do you know how it is when you plan a vacation and embark on the travel process, but then it takes a few hours to days to break with your flow and settle into another culture, time zone, and location? And then, once you do, you find yourself invigorated and enlivened by an adventure you hadn’t planned?

That’s what it felt like to read this book. I couldn’t decide if it was nostalgia or intrigue that hooked me more. Reading became a sensory experience.

Incidentally…

This book is a break from Trump.

The Parisian Heist is the $30 Paris vacation that slowly immerses you into another world, one you might remember. The pre-internet 90’s, when we collectively got excited about the same bands, paintings, musicals, and books. When the news didn’t dominate our lives with a cortisol flood, we lived the reasons the news was important—the humanities, relationships, and experiences that made life something to savor.

We’ve been stuck in survival mode for ten years thanks to MAGA and Trump, and I need to take breaks. Books often offer that, but it’s been a long minute since I held a novel in my hands that made me want to live inside it.

That’s why I was reading it slowly. And then I woke up to a rainy day and realized with a slap to the forehead that TODAY was my scheduled chat with Jo. I needed to finish the book before we talked so the discussion would be the best it could be, which meant I had to read fast. Fortunately, the pace of the story matched my urgency at that point: the stage was set, and the heist was on.

How awesome my life is that “work” gets to include reading an escape novel in bed on a rainy day about Paris in the 90s, immersed in art, food, and pre-internet culture, totally taking a break from the Trump zone, and then getting to sit and chat with the author after turning the last page?

I loved our chat, and we could’ve easily gone on a lot longer. A smattering of topics:

THE WOMEN

Jo writes badass women I want to be friends with. The women in this story are relatable if not romantic—there are mysterious benefactors, entanglements, yearning.

Emma’s hunger for art, love, and food

“I need to eat more” and “I could always eat” are two of my favorite quotes.

They are also fiercely resourseful: there is the plan B, the side streets, the figuring it out, the plan B for the plan B twists that Piazza fans know they’re gonna get.

THE PRETENTION

“Why are wealthy people always on a first-name basis with important dead people?”

And what does that tell us about people who name drop? Especially Epstein?

THE HUSTLE

“Always be hustling” is something Jo and I both say often of the book promotion. But The Parisian Heist could also be called the Parisian Hustle, as it is a story about making art famous.

“Someone is always working for it,” she wrote. She also lives it.

I hope you enjoy this writer chat! I’m hoping to do more of them in 2026.