Imagining Paris: Exile, Writing, and American Identity (Paperback)

by J. Gerald Kennedy (Author)

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly
A useful analysis of the city of Paris' influence on the expatriate writings of American authors like Gertrude Stein and F. Scott Fitzgerald.
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal
Although there are innumerable studies of the American expatriate experience in Paris between 1900 and 1940, Kennedy (English, Louisiana State Univ.) presents "a revisionary account of certain exemplary writers from a specific critical and theoretical perspective." He explores the intense effect of place as it transformed the writings and self-identities of Gertrude Stein, Ernest Hemingway, Henry Miller, F. Scott Fitzgerald, and Djuna Barnes. Citing passages from their major narratives, Kennedy demonstrates how the experiences of Paris not only liberated these modernist exiles intellectually and emotionally from their American roots but aroused feelings of alienation, displacement, and ambiguity. With its inherent dilemmas, Kennedy's concept of place adds clear, fresh scholarship to the existing knowledge on the American expatriate writers. Recommended for academic and large public libraries.
- Joan Levin, MLS, Chicago
Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 288 pages
• Publisher: Yale University Press (September 10, 1994)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0300061021
• ISBN-13: 978-0300061024
• Product Dimensions: 8.5 x 5.4 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #762,516 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars "The City of Writing", April 10, 2000

By A Customer

Kennedy's work is the best I've read on writers and Paris. Each of his close readings of what Paris comes to mean to key twentieth century American writers--Stein, Hemingway, Miller, Fitzgerald,Barnes--goes to the heart of their works, unraveling the mysterious impact of place on art. For that is his theme, the effect of place on who one is and what one writes. He also knows that it is not to the city of Paris only but to the "city of writing" writers long to belong. Kennedy traces well each writer's vision of Paris and its expression of both artistic identity and desire.

A brilliant and extremely readable book.