Part 13 (April 2024):

A Vintage Season

There are a few eras in the arts when everything goes right:  painter meets model, writer encounters muse, performer discovers instrument, lovers’ eyes meet.  Paris between 1925 and 1927 was such a time, and in this 13th Salon we discuss three books that capture the city of those years and its expatriate writers with exceptional vividness and clarity.

  • 4 virtual literary salons (1.5 hour sessions), including lectures, Q&A & group discussions on Sundays at 1pm EST (7pm CET) (April 14-May 5)

  • Chaired by author Samuél Lopez-Barrantes & the ever-prolific John Baxter

  • Enrolment limited to 20 guests

  • The four-week program costs 300 Euros. This price includes access to all 1.5 hr lectures (as well as their recordings upon request)

to reserve your spot, simply send John Baxter your enrolment payment:

 

Sunday, April 14

The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald(1925)

“There are no second acts in American lives,” observed Fitzgerald, then demonstrated its truth in his own career. A meteoric rise sputtered out in the indifferent reviews and mediocre sales of The Great Gatsby, acknowledged today as the Great American Novel. When Fitzgerald died in 1940 at 44 years old, none of his books were in print and royalties for the year totalled a mere $13.13.

Sunday, April 21

The Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemingway (1926)

When Donald Ogden Stewart introduced Hemingway to Fitzgerald at the Dingo Bar in Montparnasse,  it was Fitzgerald, a top scenarist and writer for Vanity Fair, who was the undisputed star. Hemingway parodies him in The Sun Also Rises as boozy Bill Gorton, mocking the exiles, professionally “lost”, as they run with the bulls at Pamplona or loiter in Parisian cafés.

Sunday, April 28

Memoirs of Montparnasse by John Glassco (1969)

18-year-old Canadian Glassco was an observant fly on the wall of expatriate Paris in 1927/8. He completed this chatty, often hilarious, sometimes scurrilous memoir after returning home in 1932, then forgot it for 35 years. In its pages, Gertrude Stein, Robert McAlmon, Kay Boyle and a varied cast of real-life characters bring literary Paris vividly to life as a city of “restlessness, scorn, frequent ecstasy and occasional despair.”

Sunday, May 5

Open Forum Salon

As usual, the last session opens up to thoughts and suggestions. If earlier salons are any guide, the conversation will range far and wide and provide a lively discussion to bookend the twelfth rendition of the Paris Writers’ Salon.

What is a Salon?

In a French home, the salon is the living room: a place to relax, to socialize, to talk and to listen. In the 19th century, certain homes became famous for their conversation, as hostesses competed for the most amusing talkers and story tellers. During the 1920s and 1930s, the Saturday evening salon of Gertrude Stein and Alice B. Toklas became a focus of the city’s intellectual and social life.

The Paris Writers’ Salon headquarters is located high above the sixth arrondissement at 18 Rue de l’Odéon, in the building where Sylvia Beach lived when she ran the original Shakespeare and Company bookstore.

The Paris Writers’ Salon aims to recapture some of the excitement of the great salons while also opening a window onto one of the world’s most creative capitals. Our goal is to educate and learn through dialogue. A substantial part of each session will be devoted to discussions about life, literature, and the writer’s life in Paris.

Previous Paris Writers’ Salons:

1. The Modernists (December 2021): A Moveable Feast (1964) by Ernest Hemingway, Giovanni’s Room (1956) by James Baldwin, Paris France (1940) by Gertrude Stein, The Most Beautiful Walk in the World (2011) by John Baxter

2. The Roaring Twenties (February 2022): All Blood Runs Red: The Legendary Life of Eugene Bullard (2019) by Tom Clavin & Phil Keith, Save Me the Waltz (1932) by Zelda Fitzgerald , The Golden Moments of Paris (2014) by John Baxter

3. April in Paris (April 2022): Tender is the Night (1934) by F. Scott Fitzgerald, Paris Peasant (1926) by Louis Aragon, A Year in Paris (2019) by John Baxter

4. The Furthest Shores of Bohemia (July 2022): Quartet (1928) by Jean Rhys, Le Divorce (1997) by Diane Johnson, Paris at the End of the World (2014) by John Baxter

5. A Sense of Place (October 2022): Ripening Seed by Colette (1923), The Flaneur by Edmund White (2001), and Saint Germain des Pres: Paris’ Rebel Quarter by John Baxter (2016).

6. Un Certain Regard: Christmas Special (December 2022): Madame Tellier’s Establishment by Guy de Maupassant (1881), The Inseparables by Simone de Beauvoir (posthumous, 2020), Immoveable Feast by John Baxter (2008)

7. Hopes & Dreams on the French Riviera (February 2023): The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry (1943), Loser Takes All by Graham Greene (1955), The French Riviera & Its Artists by John Baxter (2015).

8. A City of Dark & Light (April 2023): Down & Out in Paris & London by George Orwell (1933), Nana by Emile Zole (1880), Diary of a Chambermaid by Octave Mirbeau (1900)

9. Strangers in Paradise (July 2023): Long Ago in France: The Years in Dijon by MFK Fisher (1991), My Life in CIA: A Chronicle of 1973 by Harry Matthews (2005), We’ll Always Have Paris: Sex & Love in the City of Light by John Baxter (2005)

10. Night Songs for the Sleepless (September 2023): All the Light We Cannot See (2014) by Anthony Doerr, The Fall (1956) by Albert Camus, Five Nights in Paris (2015) by John Baxter

11. Paris, Love & Memory (November 2023): Bonjour Tristesse (1954) by Francoise Sagan, In the Café of Lost Youth (2007) by Patrick Modiano, Of Love and Paris: Historic, Romantic and Obsessive Liaisons (2023) by John Baxter.

12. Montmartre from A to ??? (January 2024): Inspector Maigret and the Case of the Strangled Stripper (1950) by Georges Simenon, Last Words from Montmartre (1996) by Qiu Miojin, Montmartre: Paris’s Village of Art & Sin (2017) by John Baxter.