We first meet J. Byrne Murphy in the early 1990s. The real-estate development firm he works for falls victim to the S&L crisis, and he finds himself in desperate need of a job. Along comes an idea that sends him across the Atlantic: MacArthurGlen, a pioneer of retail outlets in the U.S., wants to try out its franchise in Europe.

The Continent is home to great luxury brands, but it has none of those out-of-the-way "outlet malls" -- so familiar to American suburbanites -- that allow retailers to clear their stocks and give consumers big names at a huge discount. Surely Europeans will flock to outlet malls, too, if given the chance. At least that is Mr. Murphy's reasoning, and he is a young, can-do American straight from central casting.

"Le Deal" is Mr. Murphy's picaresque memoir of a decade of dealmaking in Europe, most memorably in France, as he tries to scout out commercial sites, partner with local developers, meet the demands of politicians and bureaucrats, and generally bring a fresh idea to a place not exactly ready for it. It is a tale fraught with frustration and filled with insight.

In London, a high-end retailer hints at the trouble to come. "Surely, you're joking," he says to Mr. Murphy when he hears of the outlet-mall idea. One simply "doesn't do" that sort of thing in Europe, he says. Mr. Murphy hears such comments a lot in the course of his business travels. In France, a real-estate consultant tells him that outlet malls "will not work here." Days after Mr. Murphy moves his family to Paris, the French prime minister announces a moratorium on the construction of retail developments anywhere in France. At the time, a surge in supermarkets was hurting the business of long-time shop owners.

Like other new arrivals in a foreign country, Mr. Murphy struggles with the basics -- like getting a residency permit (his only comes through years later, after he has moved to London) and opening a bank account. But "Le Deal" is not an update on "An American in Paris." Mr. Murphy's job takes him deeper into the French bush than most Americans will ever go. He travels from town to town looking for the best spots for his "outlet centers." Along the way, he repeatedly mispronounces Nike in French, rendering the name in a way that suggests fornication instead of sportswear.

To a naïve outsider, a new mall nearby a far-flung French town would seem to be a desirable thing, promising jobs, tax revenues and products that residents might want to buy. But merely to broach the possibility, Mr. Murphy found in his travels, required him to participate in "le minuet," an intricate supplicatory dance with a town mayor or local official.

An amiable chat about everything but the matter at hand would begin at an administerial office, typically in the late morning, over a glass or two of the local vintage. The "meeting" would then move to a restaurant for a long lunch, during which more of the good stuff would be poured, accompanying several courses. Finally a moment would come between cheese and dessert for the making of a formal pitch. (To raise something so base as business any time earlier would be uncouth.) "Unfortunately," Mr. Murphy confesses, describing his early minuet days, "by the time the great moment arrived I was word-slurring, lazy-eyed, nonlistening drunk." Eventually he learned to keep his head after several glasses of wine, a useful skill on any continent. He learned, too, about the Cartesian way of thinking -- studying a problem for a long time and declining to act on it.

Politicians cause Mr. Murphy the biggest headaches. They put one obstacle after another in his way. It takes years for him to get a green light for his first big retail center -- in Troyes, about 90 miles southeast of Paris. "In France," Mr. Murphy writes, "the emphasis is always on job preservation, and not job creation."

In short, it is more rational, from the French politician's point of view, to protect small retailers or established guilds than to open up opportunities. After all, the potential workers at new stores -- let alone would-be customers -- aren't organized. They are not about to march in the streets or kill off re-election hopes. And yet when the mall in Troyes finally opens -- what do you know? -- it's a success. The French, it turns out, are not that different from Americans: For a bargain, they will travel long distances and stand in line for hours.

In Germany, Mr. Murphy faces similar resistance from the political class. He meets the premier of Lower Saxony, a certain Gerhard Schroeder (the future German chancellor), who studies MacArthurGlen's plans for an outlet center. Over cigars, Mr. Schroeder tells Mr. Murphy and his American colleagues: "I'll kill it. I will have to." He persuades them to withdraw a pending bid for a mall site by promising, privately, that he'll back them after he gets through an upcoming election. But after the election, naturally, he reneges. In Italy, Mr. Murphy finds the challenge to be no less difficult though of a slightly different character: He must maneuver around mafia-types and Italy's nonfunctional state to get a shopping center open.

"Le Deal" ends happily, however. MacArthurGlen has 11 centers in Europe now, employing 8,000 people and boasting a billion dollars in annual sales. "We had not only created a new concept and a new company in Europe," Mr. Murphy writes triumphantly, "but in fact created a new multibillion-dollar industry." So what did he learn? There is no "Europe," he says. There is instead "a collection of economically competing regions." In most of them a no-can-do attitude is all too prevalent, blocking entrepreneurship and protecting entrenched interests. But perseverance can pay off. As Mr. Murphy shows in his entertaining chronicle, it is possible, even in the Old World, to close "le deal" and make something new.
—Matthew Kaminski