Customer Reviews

Expatriate Paris: A Cultural and Literary Guide to Paris of the 1920's

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The late Arlen Hansen was a legendery professor at the University of the Pacific, and a professor of mine. He taught a course on expatriate Paris in the 20's, and his passion for his subject comes through on every page of this book. I copied down information from this book for a recent trip to Paris, and without it I never would have found the apartment building in which Zelda Fitzgerald jammed the elevator on her and Scott's floor so that it would always be waiting for them (to the dismay of the manager). Such tid bits of delicious trivia abound on every page, and I highly recommend this book, especially if you are a fan of the literary 20's, and are planning on a trip to Paris in the future.

Hansen has given us a gift. His investigation into the haunts and habits of American writers and their circle in 1920's Paris is brilliant. Read the book and understand, in part, much of what they lived and how it manifests in their work. This is worth reading for myriad reasons. It is a romance, an adventure, an exploration.