Overview

"The great American exodus to Paris after World War I included not only writers and artists but journalists. They came by the score, the raw and the accomplished, and in their baggage most carried the dream of eventually becoming poets, short-story writers, or novelists. Meanwhile Paris offered them an overwhelming advantage (coupled with a favorable postwar exchange rate and freedom from Prohibition) by providing jobs that enabled them to remain abroad for extended periods. With the war, American news activity had shifted from London to Paris. The city was now — as one of the arriving newspapermen called it — ""the centre of American journalism in Europe,"" with jobs available on English-language newspapers and magazines, with news services and the foreign bureaus of American publications, and as freelancers of various sorts of writing for a Europe-hungry audience back home. News of Paris recaptures the colorful, often zany world of Paris-American journalists during the glory days of the expatriate period. It does so by concentrating on the lives of such figures as Ernest Hemingway, James Thurber, Henry Miller, Elliot Paul, William L. Shirer, Dorothy Thompson, Janet Flanner, and Eric Sevareid, and on the life of the major newspapers, including the Herald and the Tribune. Others populating its pages include Harold Stearns, Paul Scott Mowrer, Bill Bird, Vincent Sheean, Waverley Root, Eugene Jolas, Martha Foley, Whit Burnett, Ned Calmer, and A. J. Liebling. Ronald Weber aims to add journalists to their rightful place in the story of Americans in Paris at the fabled time when, as Gertrude Stein said, Paris was where the twentieth century was. But in producing this charming, delightfully entertaining book, Mr. Weber has given panache to his purpose. With 8 pages of black-and-white photographs and drawings."

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9781566637329

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Reviews

An old war chest full of stories about this intoxicating period in journalism.--Marc Weingarten New York Times Book Review

What fun! News of Paris evokes the romantic in those of us who wish we had been there. Listen carefully, and you can hear Gershwin's 'American in Paris' in the background. -- Terence Smith, Special Correspondent Newshour With Jim Lehrer Ronald Weber gives us an odd and intriguing look at a rarely explored corner of cultural history. Aging journalists will love it, and so will just about everyone else. -- Tony Hillerman Weber has found and entertainingly explored one of the Lost Generation's lost corners in this engagingly readable history. -- Richard Schickel What a treat this book is. -- Morley Safer E son du grisli Faces frozen in...b&w photos become animated in this superb history, thanks to Weber's fluid, detailed writing and flair. Publishers Weekly News of Paris is one of those agreeable books that make you wish you could have lived then and done that. -- Roger K. Miller, Pittsburgh Tribune-Review Readers interested in American journalism as practiced abroad in the 1920s and 1930s will enjoy this engaging book. -- Vanessa Bush Booklist A useful reminder that the American presence in Paris...was larger and more varied than is usually understood. -- Jonathan Yardley Review Of Higher Education It was a memorable period, and this is a memorable book. -- Norman Rowlinson The Buffalo News A vivid account. Kirkus Reviews Weber's book is an old war chest full of stories...these journalists are fun to spend time with. -- Marc Weingarten International Herald Tribune Captures the vitality and verve of Paris in the interwar years. -- Marie Marmo Mullaney Library Journal Most accessible to readers who understand the cultural and political environment of Europe between the wars... Recommended. CHOICE This is a good-old-days kind of book...Rich entertainment. Columbia Journalism Review It was...a community with a delightfully high tolerance for eccentric behavior, and, er, ingenuity, which Weber...details with verve. -- Robert Whitcomb The Weekly Standard Hemingway is here, but the colorful lesser lights make for even better copy. Santa Barbara News-Press This is a richly anecdotal history of the American newspaper people-Ernest Hemingway and Henry Miller among them-who flocked to Paris during the 15 years after the armistice that ended World War I. San Juan Star One of those agreeable books that makes you wish you could have lived then and done that...writing is solid. Arkansas Democrat Gazette The book's writing is solid. Janesville Gazette This book makes an important and lively contribution to the scholarship on the period. American Historical Review An old war chest full of stories about this intoxicating period in journalism. -- Marc Weingarten The New York Times

Author Information

Ronald Weber is professor emeritus of American studies at the University of Notre Dame. He has also written America in Change, The Literature of Fact, and Hired Pens. He lives in Valparaiso, Indiana.

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