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Being geniuses together, 1920-1930
"This collaboration--posthumous in McAlmon's case--has proved amazingly successful. It gives us pictures of two lives--and many surrounding lives--from different angles, as if they had been taken with a stereoscopic camera. Thereby it gives us an impression of depth and substantiality that have been lacking in other memoirs of Paris in the 1920's." -- Malcolm Cowley, New York Times Book ReviewThere was no more exhilarating decade in the history of modern letters than the twenties in Paris. They were all Ezra Pound, Ernest Hemingway, Gertude Stein, James Joyce, John Dos Passos, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Mina Loy, T. S. Eliot, Djuna Barnes, Ford Madox Ford, Katherine Mansfield, Alice B. Toklas... and with them were Robert McAlmon and Kay Boyle.Their collaborative memoir began as a book written by McAlmon in 1934. In the late 1960s, Kay Boyle revised and edited the book, adding alternating chapters of her own. The result is a marvelous chronicle of the period as seen through two sets of perceptive eyes. As both writers tell wonderful anecdotes--of Joyce on his evening binges, of Stein holding court, of Hemingway at his most vicious--they beautifully evoke 1920s Paris in this sad, funny, informative, and nostalgic memoir."On his side of the dual autobiography (an interesting device which works very well here) McAlmon tells fascinating stories... and he is always honestly direct. You like the man and you like the book... On the other side, Kay Boyle is a delightful writer with a style that can be dazzling, yet strong as steel... It is Miss Boyle who gives us the airy magic of Camelot-Paris simply by telling us the story of her hopelessly romantic life." -- Mario Puzo
370 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1938
About the author
Robert McAlmon
23 books6 followersRobert Menzies McAlmon (also used Robert M. McAlmon, as his signature name, March 9, 1895 – February 2, 1956) was an American author, poet and publisher
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Displaying 1 - 17 of 17 reviews
August 8, 2025
"In 1920 the atmosphere of New York had been postwar despairing, but various poets were then raising passionate voices in rebellion against puritanism," begins writer-editor Robert McAlmon in this wonderfully detailed memoir of Paris in the 20s, published in 1938 and revised by Kay Boyle with her alternate chapters and published in 1968. The legendary (charismatic) McAlmon set himself up in Paris as a publisher who introduced Hemingway, Nathanael West, Gert Stein and Djuna Barnes. He gave James Joyce a writing allowance. The Kansas- born McAlmon had funds to do this, having married a fabulously rich young woman who wanted to escape Dado and pursue same sex as did, presumably, the discreet McAlmon. Theirs was an arranged marriage. (Wife was "Bryher," see: Carl Van Vechten's "Extravagant Crowd").
Along came the young American beauty, Kay Boyle, recently married, who fell in love with McAlmon; despite various husbands and a slew of children she remained passionate pals with him. Yes, this is filmic material--. Their two stories during the 1920-30 years intersect beautifully. In Montparnasse, McAlmon introduces Djuna - "well up with drink" - to Sinclair Lewis, "some three sheets to the wind." Man Ray, he reports, was settled with Kiki in a studio and getting attention with the help of Duchamp and Tristan Tzara. William Carlos Williams consolidates his friendship w McAlmon, esp after McA assures him that H L Mencken is "a Babbitt iconoclast exclusively for Babbitts." (A line that cannot have endeared McAlmon to the mass of babbitty US editors who controlled what got printed here).
Kay Boyle, late of Ohio, discards a French husband as she starts to write. "I wanted so much to know what was taking place inside me," Kay allows. In the golden sunshine Picabia, Mina Loy, Satie, Brancusi pass through the cafes. And Malcolm Cowley gets into a fight with a waiter. In a riotous episode, Kay accepts a job as ghostwriter for Gladys Palmer of Palmer Biscuit fame, aka the Dayang Muda of Sarawak. Not an easy task. "How could the Dayang Muda be expected to recall details of a life," Boyle ponders, "that was now dimmed and blurred."
Raymond Duncan and Harry Crosby join the historic ensemble. McAlmon offers some pith on Gertie : "I left [her salon] thinking one could become fond of her if she would quit being the oracle and pontificating. Miss Stein is apparently interested only in people who sit before her and listen. Her manner of writing may upset people; what little she has to say cannot."
An extraordinary era. Leading the pack, the extraordinary McAlmon.
====
Between 1921 and 1925, McAlmon was a significant literary figure, as editor & writer, in Paris. Because of literary jealousies and the ease with which he offended some, he was pushed into obscurity by the late 1930s. Bad-mouthed to US publishers (especially by Scott Fitzgerald), McAlmon had difficulties finding a US berth. This book was first published, finally, 1938, as a solo effort. Europe was erupting into flames and readers weren't keen on the spirited 20s. And then he was forgotten. In 1968 this memoir was republished w alternate chapters by Kay Boyle. The New Republic wrote, "There have been few literary figures of this century whose work has been so unexplored..." His books went out of print or couldnt be found. The situ has not really changed.~~ In 1975 Sanford J Smoller published "Adrift Among Geniuses," the sole bio of McAlmon, who died in poverty, 1956, in the California desert. Even this bio is a rare (& expensive) item. Without a famous critic behind a name, this happens. (Thanks to Gore Vidal and Tim Page, someone like Dawn Powell is still alive). You won't forget the complicated, influential and always memorable McAlmon.
Along came the young American beauty, Kay Boyle, recently married, who fell in love with McAlmon; despite various husbands and a slew of children she remained passionate pals with him. Yes, this is filmic material--. Their two stories during the 1920-30 years intersect beautifully. In Montparnasse, McAlmon introduces Djuna - "well up with drink" - to Sinclair Lewis, "some three sheets to the wind." Man Ray, he reports, was settled with Kiki in a studio and getting attention with the help of Duchamp and Tristan Tzara. William Carlos Williams consolidates his friendship w McAlmon, esp after McA assures him that H L Mencken is "a Babbitt iconoclast exclusively for Babbitts." (A line that cannot have endeared McAlmon to the mass of babbitty US editors who controlled what got printed here).
Kay Boyle, late of Ohio, discards a French husband as she starts to write. "I wanted so much to know what was taking place inside me," Kay allows. In the golden sunshine Picabia, Mina Loy, Satie, Brancusi pass through the cafes. And Malcolm Cowley gets into a fight with a waiter. In a riotous episode, Kay accepts a job as ghostwriter for Gladys Palmer of Palmer Biscuit fame, aka the Dayang Muda of Sarawak. Not an easy task. "How could the Dayang Muda be expected to recall details of a life," Boyle ponders, "that was now dimmed and blurred."
Raymond Duncan and Harry Crosby join the historic ensemble. McAlmon offers some pith on Gertie : "I left [her salon] thinking one could become fond of her if she would quit being the oracle and pontificating. Miss Stein is apparently interested only in people who sit before her and listen. Her manner of writing may upset people; what little she has to say cannot."
An extraordinary era. Leading the pack, the extraordinary McAlmon.
====
Between 1921 and 1925, McAlmon was a significant literary figure, as editor & writer, in Paris. Because of literary jealousies and the ease with which he offended some, he was pushed into obscurity by the late 1930s. Bad-mouthed to US publishers (especially by Scott Fitzgerald), McAlmon had difficulties finding a US berth. This book was first published, finally, 1938, as a solo effort. Europe was erupting into flames and readers weren't keen on the spirited 20s. And then he was forgotten. In 1968 this memoir was republished w alternate chapters by Kay Boyle. The New Republic wrote, "There have been few literary figures of this century whose work has been so unexplored..." His books went out of print or couldnt be found. The situ has not really changed.~~ In 1975 Sanford J Smoller published "Adrift Among Geniuses," the sole bio of McAlmon, who died in poverty, 1956, in the California desert. Even this bio is a rare (& expensive) item. Without a famous critic behind a name, this happens. (Thanks to Gore Vidal and Tim Page, someone like Dawn Powell is still alive). You won't forget the complicated, influential and always memorable McAlmon.
July 11, 2016
I wrote a note and told him, just what a star I'd make.Paris when it sizzled, Paris when it fizzled, a two-narrator account. Robert McAlmon has the first round in every cycle, and his was the first to get published; a writer and prestigious publisher of iconic 20th century writers, McAlmon was searching for his place in the puzzle. He frequently pushes at the boundaries for something better, trying unknown poets in his magazines, dashing off to Berlin for a few drinks, accompanying Hemingway to bullfights and other tests of endurance.
He sent it back and marked it “Opened by mistake.”
Is something the matter with Otto Kahn,
Or is something wrong with me?
1920's vaudeville ditty, Fanny Brice
Long after McAlmon got his slightly sketchy version into print, upstart and early feminist Kay Boyle sees a lot of intersecting moments with her own biography, also the Paris of the twenties-- and creates a little duet for lost-generation epicures. The book as we have it today interleaves both McAlmon and Boyle making their way to the City Of Light, and to each other.
The stunning atmospherics and world class cast of characters lights up the edges of the individual recorded moments-- it was a time when you might "meet the Joyces for dinner at the Trianon", or picnic drunkenly with surrealists along the Seine, accidentally run into Zelda and Scott on the ferry, or if nothing much else was forthcoming, you might entertain one of the most astounding propositions in the book, and "just go to the movies with Man Ray".
For his part, McAlmon is tough and forthright, though insightful:
Upon arriving in Paris after an absence, I was always in a fever of excitement, and couldn't do quickly enough the bars of Montparnasse and the cabarets of Montmartre, and the Champs Elysees district. Crossing the Seine into the Place de le Concorde on a misty spring morning, or seeing Notre Dame des Champs from river level at dawn, when well on with drink, still brought a foaming ecstasy into me, a stroke of lightning to the heart or mind about the wonder of it. But I knew all too well that Paris is a bitch, and that one shouldn't become infatuated with bitches, particularly when they have wit, imagination, experience and tradition- beyond their ruthlessness.
Boyle takes a much more circumspect view, knowing in advance how her account will fit in the spaces between McAlmon's exploits and pronouncements. Not surprisingly, hers is the more compelling to the reader:
It may appear to have been a time without much humour in the avant-garde literary movement, but it must be remembered that it was a time of the gravest crisis in letters, of furious schism and revolution in the arts, and it is not the way of revolutionaries in any uprising to go lightly to the block to lose their heads. . . Joyce [et al] and the troubled vision of the Surrealists prepared the way for the anti-novel, the anti-hero, for the type of poetry that Cummings was writing and the quite new type of novel of Celine. And out of oblivion the revolution retrieved the work of Kafka, and Rimbaud, and Lautreamont. This was a serious business, and if one laughed a good deal over café tables, one did not laugh very loudly on the printed page.
The name dropping is intense, and probably has no equal in any other book about arts and culture-- Picasso, Leger, Picabia, Cocteau, Satie, Brancusi, Joyce, Pound, Elliot, Fitzgerald, Hemingway, Stein--- and it is all more or less prosaic, everyday. Any given day brought another round of acute discussion at the café tables, rising perhaps to storming fits where people walk out, another few rounds and someone is singing sailor's songs or Joyce is intoning the Latin Mass again.
The memorable moments are the down-to-earth ones, where a slow realization dawns in the mind of one of the narrators, or another Parisian sacred cow is speared for all to enjoy. One of the standby talents at the artist's studios (as model), and the cafes (as witty observer) is the partner of Man Ray, the beautiful and outrageous Kiki, known everywhere for her statuesque bearing and sharp tongue.
Very late one night in one of the boites, feeling the wine, yet another amateur chanteuse gives her salacious rendering of the snappy Fanny Brice number above, outlining her unappreciated talents. "Is there something wrong, with Otto Kahn," she laments, "or something wrong with me?" From the far end of the bar, the considered declaration of la Kiki : "wiz Otto Kahn, definitely."
Sometimes being geniuses together is as easy as acknowledging it.
July 7, 2017
2017 Review:
On second reading, and having read more books tangential to this one, I think it stacks up very well. It's the same four stars now as the first time, only because I am very stingy with the fives -- amazing is, in my opinion, to be reserved for very special books. But whereas I recently said that Morley Callaghan's book is the best on the subject, I must now beg to differ with myself. This one is substantially different and just as good.
McAlmon and Boyle complement each other and their two stories and points of view make for excellent reading. After his death, Boyle added her parts to the book that McAlmon had already written. But her objective was not just to bring to light the writer she loved and admired who had not received the recognition he deserved. She also had justice in mind. Because McAlmon was a talented and generous man, who had helped many writers of the time by promoting and publishing their work, helping some financially when they needed it, and suffering harsh criticism and betrayal from almost all of them. And finally, Boyle's story of her own life in those years is fascinating as is the portrayal that both of them give us of the men and women who created an extraordinary society for themselves in Paris in the 20s and 30s.
2011 Review:
The book is well written, parts by Robert McAlmon, parts by Kay Boyle. Boyle put it together as a book after McAlmon's death. He was, according to many accounts within the book, a very important factor in the publishing of many of the writers living in Paris at that time (the 20s). He was also an excellent writer/poet himself, but never received the recognition he deserved. Hence this book. I found the beginning and last parts very interesting, the middle had too many names (for me), and didn't hold my interest quite as much. But I stuck to it because I find that period fascinating, and having just read Hemingway's A Moveable Feast, folllowed by a biography of Hadley Hemingway, I wanted to know more. McAlmon didn't think much of Hemingway, nor of Gertrude Stein. His opinions were very interesting indeed.
On second reading, and having read more books tangential to this one, I think it stacks up very well. It's the same four stars now as the first time, only because I am very stingy with the fives -- amazing is, in my opinion, to be reserved for very special books. But whereas I recently said that Morley Callaghan's book is the best on the subject, I must now beg to differ with myself. This one is substantially different and just as good.
McAlmon and Boyle complement each other and their two stories and points of view make for excellent reading. After his death, Boyle added her parts to the book that McAlmon had already written. But her objective was not just to bring to light the writer she loved and admired who had not received the recognition he deserved. She also had justice in mind. Because McAlmon was a talented and generous man, who had helped many writers of the time by promoting and publishing their work, helping some financially when they needed it, and suffering harsh criticism and betrayal from almost all of them. And finally, Boyle's story of her own life in those years is fascinating as is the portrayal that both of them give us of the men and women who created an extraordinary society for themselves in Paris in the 20s and 30s.
2011 Review:
The book is well written, parts by Robert McAlmon, parts by Kay Boyle. Boyle put it together as a book after McAlmon's death. He was, according to many accounts within the book, a very important factor in the publishing of many of the writers living in Paris at that time (the 20s). He was also an excellent writer/poet himself, but never received the recognition he deserved. Hence this book. I found the beginning and last parts very interesting, the middle had too many names (for me), and didn't hold my interest quite as much. But I stuck to it because I find that period fascinating, and having just read Hemingway's A Moveable Feast, folllowed by a biography of Hadley Hemingway, I wanted to know more. McAlmon didn't think much of Hemingway, nor of Gertrude Stein. His opinions were very interesting indeed.
August 19, 2022
McAlmon scrive benissimo.
Parigi-per lo più- anni '20-'30: i più noti intellettuali (in primis Joyce, poi Hemingway, Sylvia Beach, William Carlos Williams, Gertrude Stein, Constantin Brancusi, Carnevali -quest'ultimo molto più ai margini-, Jean Cocteau, lo stesso McAlmon etc.) discutono di letteratura; si ubriacano (molto, anzi moltissimo); partecipano a eventi, cene, spettacoli e a volte li organizzano; fondano riviste e piccole case editrici; tentano di costruire ponti letterari tra Europa e America; si criticano ferocemente (ma con stile) e provano a reagire ai tristi e difficili anni post prima guerra mondiale. Ecco, McAlmon racconta in modo scanzonato la bellezza e difficoltà di quegli anni senza risparmiare pettegolezzi e dinamiche amicali. Il punto di vista è privilegiato, è come guardare da dietro le quinte i processi creativi e distruttivi di un'epoca letteraria.
Un dietro le quinte che per loro era palcoscenico.
Parigi-per lo più- anni '20-'30: i più noti intellettuali (in primis Joyce, poi Hemingway, Sylvia Beach, William Carlos Williams, Gertrude Stein, Constantin Brancusi, Carnevali -quest'ultimo molto più ai margini-, Jean Cocteau, lo stesso McAlmon etc.) discutono di letteratura; si ubriacano (molto, anzi moltissimo); partecipano a eventi, cene, spettacoli e a volte li organizzano; fondano riviste e piccole case editrici; tentano di costruire ponti letterari tra Europa e America; si criticano ferocemente (ma con stile) e provano a reagire ai tristi e difficili anni post prima guerra mondiale. Ecco, McAlmon racconta in modo scanzonato la bellezza e difficoltà di quegli anni senza risparmiare pettegolezzi e dinamiche amicali. Il punto di vista è privilegiato, è come guardare da dietro le quinte i processi creativi e distruttivi di un'epoca letteraria.
Un dietro le quinte che per loro era palcoscenico.
February 23, 2012
Robert McAlmon is the genius that time forgot.
McAlmon published Hemingway's first 2 books and attended the bullfights with Hemingway's posse in Pamplona. Hemingway re-paid McAlmon by mocking his masculinity, punching him in the face, and using him as the basis for the character everybody makes fun of in "The Sun Also Rises."
McAlmon published Hemingway's first 2 books and attended the bullfights with Hemingway's posse in Pamplona. Hemingway re-paid McAlmon by mocking his masculinity, punching him in the face, and using him as the basis for the character everybody makes fun of in "The Sun Also Rises."
September 26, 2019
My "review" is at my blog. It starts, "My students and I just read this book in my Forgotten Books class. They weren't thrilled by it, but I thought it was fascinating, a peek into another 'lost generation' that the myth of Paris in the 20s has obscured." Read more at https://anneboydrioux.com/the-lost-ge...
November 4, 2009
I love this book. McAlmon knows how to dish, and he is often very funny. Boyle's interpolated chapters are often a bit saccherine for my taste, but she does the good work of showing the generosity of many of McAlmon's unremarked behind-the-scenes acts.
September 23, 2008
Robert McAlmon, writer, came to Paris in 1921 after marrying Annie Winifred Ellerman, the English heiress, also known as the writer Bryher. She was the lover of the poet, H.D. who had been, if you recall, an early girl-friend of Ezra Pound (yes, everyone knew and did everyone back then- ah, the 20s.) McAlmon also founded the small press, Contact Editions, which had published Hemingway, Stein, and others. In 1938, McAlmon published the memoirs of his time in Paris from 1921-1934, Being Geniuses Together. He died in the US in 1958. In 1968, Kay Boyle, another writer of the 20s, resurrected and altered McAlmon's memoirs adding her own impressions of Paris.
The book alternates between a chapter of McAlmon and Boyle covering the years from 1920 until 1930. McAlmon's chapters are pretty straightforward: hanging out at cafes and bars with other artists and writers, he was seen everywhere at this time. As Sylvia Beach was to quip, “Whatever café or bar McAlmon patronised at the moment was where you saw everybody.” Boyle's chapters are romanticized re-renderings of being on the periphery for a while, then finally intersecting into McAlmon's world.
I tried to figure out why Boyle would take on and insert herself into this memoir, there must have been many a forgotten memoir written about this time. Then after a while, it became clearer to me. This was her love-letter to the man who barely noticed her. That being said, it does not make it any less of a worthy reading. I've read probably five or six memoirs of this time, plus a good number of biographies. And although I read the various permutations of anecdotes that were in this book, I've also gained a closer understanding of the period. And since both Boyle's & McAlmon's books are nearly impossible to find in libraries (and I haven't found them easily at used bookstores), this gives one a decent little peek into their writing.
I'm very curious, however, what McAlmon's original memoir looked like before Boyle touched it. However, McAlmon's book is nearly impossible to find, and it very out of print, so this may never happen.
This blog does a pretty decent job analyzing this whole thing. http://www.nzbc.net.nz/culture/2007/0...
The book alternates between a chapter of McAlmon and Boyle covering the years from 1920 until 1930. McAlmon's chapters are pretty straightforward: hanging out at cafes and bars with other artists and writers, he was seen everywhere at this time. As Sylvia Beach was to quip, “Whatever café or bar McAlmon patronised at the moment was where you saw everybody.” Boyle's chapters are romanticized re-renderings of being on the periphery for a while, then finally intersecting into McAlmon's world.
I tried to figure out why Boyle would take on and insert herself into this memoir, there must have been many a forgotten memoir written about this time. Then after a while, it became clearer to me. This was her love-letter to the man who barely noticed her. That being said, it does not make it any less of a worthy reading. I've read probably five or six memoirs of this time, plus a good number of biographies. And although I read the various permutations of anecdotes that were in this book, I've also gained a closer understanding of the period. And since both Boyle's & McAlmon's books are nearly impossible to find in libraries (and I haven't found them easily at used bookstores), this gives one a decent little peek into their writing.
I'm very curious, however, what McAlmon's original memoir looked like before Boyle touched it. However, McAlmon's book is nearly impossible to find, and it very out of print, so this may never happen.
This blog does a pretty decent job analyzing this whole thing. http://www.nzbc.net.nz/culture/2007/0...
February 22, 2018
Two gifted writers share their memories of Paris and life between the wars. Technically, it's a book written by McAlmon, into which Boyle later inserted her own chapters, alternating one with the other.
For me, interested in history, it's a good read - what with all the nightclubs, and folks, rich and poor, artists, writers, dancers, barmen, musicians, royalty and former royalty, the rich and the nouveau riche, looking for life, and pretty well doomed and damned not find it, because the world they inhabit is a world of raw egos and frayed talent, sometimes rising to the heights, but so often trapped in self-doubt and jealousy with too much booze and too much sex, and not enough sleep - and while gifted with considerable skills of observation, to note the shallowness of the Americans, and the flaws of their fellow writers, unable to reign in their own frenzied expenditure of life.
Drugs, suicide, sex, marriage and divorce, disease, poverty, and wealth ... many living on the generosity of others, or living as paupers ... so many coming to an unhappy ending, perhaps loved by their families, even supported by them, but dying alone, or in a poverty, or just dying, full of that proverbial darkness that cannot be driven away, because somewhere along the line, they came to understand that the darkness could give them life, in their rage, in their breaking all the molds, in their efforts to create a world on a page, or a canvass, or a stage.
Can they?
What's an artist who isn't slightly crazy?
Is that the deal?
For history buffs, a very good read. For those who love good writing, enjoy. For those who want answers, well, keep on looking ... or perhaps understand that answers are not to be found, but maybe some encouragement to not give up, and not to throw life away, yes, in debauchery, believing that life can be found by destroying it.
All rather sad ... all rather sad!
For me, interested in history, it's a good read - what with all the nightclubs, and folks, rich and poor, artists, writers, dancers, barmen, musicians, royalty and former royalty, the rich and the nouveau riche, looking for life, and pretty well doomed and damned not find it, because the world they inhabit is a world of raw egos and frayed talent, sometimes rising to the heights, but so often trapped in self-doubt and jealousy with too much booze and too much sex, and not enough sleep - and while gifted with considerable skills of observation, to note the shallowness of the Americans, and the flaws of their fellow writers, unable to reign in their own frenzied expenditure of life.
Drugs, suicide, sex, marriage and divorce, disease, poverty, and wealth ... many living on the generosity of others, or living as paupers ... so many coming to an unhappy ending, perhaps loved by their families, even supported by them, but dying alone, or in a poverty, or just dying, full of that proverbial darkness that cannot be driven away, because somewhere along the line, they came to understand that the darkness could give them life, in their rage, in their breaking all the molds, in their efforts to create a world on a page, or a canvass, or a stage.
Can they?
What's an artist who isn't slightly crazy?
Is that the deal?
For history buffs, a very good read. For those who love good writing, enjoy. For those who want answers, well, keep on looking ... or perhaps understand that answers are not to be found, but maybe some encouragement to not give up, and not to throw life away, yes, in debauchery, believing that life can be found by destroying it.
All rather sad ... all rather sad!
April 12, 2012
Ideally, I'd give this book four stars. I liked reading McAlmon's chapters and his perspective on 1920s Paris and the Lost Generation.
However, what should have been a wonderful memoir by a significant but little-known figure in the 1920s Paris literary scene was ruined by Kay Boyle's hand. For reasons I still can't fathom, she chose to interrupt McAlmon's story with chapters of her own life and how she came to France, although her world and McAlmon's do not really connect until about halfway through. Even then, the connection seems pretty weak; they were friends, but it wasn't a strong or particularly equal friendship - while McAlmon gets multiple and frequent mentions in Boyle's chapters, McAlmon only gives Boyle a paragraph or two of space in his. Switching between her story and McAlmon's felt like going between two completely different books. I can understand revising it, but inserting her own story seems a bit selfish on Boyle's part. The flow is interrupted for a story that I found myself skimming through anyway.
I do recommend reading this. But only Robert McAlmon's book. It's almost impossible to get an unrevised copy (believe me, I checked), so I suggest only reading McAlmon's chapters. Read Kay Boyle's after, if at all. She should have just written her own memoir instead of completely disrupting McAlmon's.
However, what should have been a wonderful memoir by a significant but little-known figure in the 1920s Paris literary scene was ruined by Kay Boyle's hand. For reasons I still can't fathom, she chose to interrupt McAlmon's story with chapters of her own life and how she came to France, although her world and McAlmon's do not really connect until about halfway through. Even then, the connection seems pretty weak; they were friends, but it wasn't a strong or particularly equal friendship - while McAlmon gets multiple and frequent mentions in Boyle's chapters, McAlmon only gives Boyle a paragraph or two of space in his. Switching between her story and McAlmon's felt like going between two completely different books. I can understand revising it, but inserting her own story seems a bit selfish on Boyle's part. The flow is interrupted for a story that I found myself skimming through anyway.
I do recommend reading this. But only Robert McAlmon's book. It's almost impossible to get an unrevised copy (believe me, I checked), so I suggest only reading McAlmon's chapters. Read Kay Boyle's after, if at all. She should have just written her own memoir instead of completely disrupting McAlmon's.
September 17, 2021
While at University I read (though not for a class) Being Geniuses Together, 1920 1930, which Kay Boyle co-wrote in a way with Robert McAlmon. I say in a way because this was originally McAlmon's memoir of his life and times in the 1920's, when he was friends with Boyle, Hemingway, Djuna Barnes, James Joyce, and many others. He was known as the "Publisher of Paris" by the expatriate community in those days.
Boyle was a life long friend of McAlmon. He wrote his memoir in 1938, unfortunately for him when there was lessening public interest in 1920's memoirs. Years later, in 1968, Boyle arranged for the memoir to be reissued, with alternating chapters written by herself. As she was well known, she hoped this would help sales and revive interest in McAlmon, as a sort of memorial to him.
Being Geniuses Together is excellent. One of the very best of the writerly memoirs of that 1920's period. Both the McAlmon and Boyle chapters are very worth reading.
Written in a gossipy style, each memoirist provides an insight into living in those times, especially as a member of the expat community. The scene is mainly Paris but also New York, Germany, and environs. There are many cameos by a host of writers and artists of the era. We see them, including Boyle and McAlmon, as flawed, interesting human beings at the beginnings of their careers, and witness some early successes.
Boyle was a life long friend of McAlmon. He wrote his memoir in 1938, unfortunately for him when there was lessening public interest in 1920's memoirs. Years later, in 1968, Boyle arranged for the memoir to be reissued, with alternating chapters written by herself. As she was well known, she hoped this would help sales and revive interest in McAlmon, as a sort of memorial to him.
Being Geniuses Together is excellent. One of the very best of the writerly memoirs of that 1920's period. Both the McAlmon and Boyle chapters are very worth reading.
Written in a gossipy style, each memoirist provides an insight into living in those times, especially as a member of the expat community. The scene is mainly Paris but also New York, Germany, and environs. There are many cameos by a host of writers and artists of the era. We see them, including Boyle and McAlmon, as flawed, interesting human beings at the beginnings of their careers, and witness some early successes.
November 9, 2021
American ex-patriot writers Robert McAlmon and Kay Boyle decided to record their Paris memories from 1920-30 in alternating chapters in this unique and fascinating autobiography. While McAlmon’s fiction has nearly been forgotten, Boyle’s reputation as a modernist has grown with time. This book bears out why. McAlmon’s writing is as awkward and cankerous as the writer himself. Often cited as a huge influence on Hemingway with his straightforward, unemotional tone, McAlmon has a bitterness and bitchiness that Hemingway mostly did away with (except for in A Moveable Feast!). McAlmon seems determined to settle scores and tell it as he sees it, dragging down Stein, Fitzgerald, Hemingway, and Joyce along the way. While he can be harsh, he is also very funny, and probably more than a little bit accurate about the foibles of his friends and acquaintances. Boyle is more circumspect, self-depreciating, introspective, and personal. And she is by far the better writer. Her life is sloppy and unfocused, but she writes with such beauty that you can’t help but cheer for her and her friends as they struggle to stay above water. A must read for fans of the great modernist writers!
August 18, 2021
I found this to be an excellent read. Regardless of what some said during his lifetime, I do think McAlmon was a fine writer - much better than his peer thought he was. It's true there are some careless errors here and there, but he wasn't concerned with perfection as much as a sort of "white hot onto the paper" stream of consciousness way of doing things. Rather unique and unlike critics the likes of that egomaniac James Joyce, McAlmon's writing is great prose as opposed to pretentious gibberish.
A flawed man who blew many of his chances because of his sarcastic and sometimes vicious tongue, he nevertheless was and remains an important part of American literature.
As for Kay Boyle, an equally interesting and compelling writer who nicely fills in gaps as well as providing an alternative and thought provoking POV.
A flawed man who blew many of his chances because of his sarcastic and sometimes vicious tongue, he nevertheless was and remains an important part of American literature.
As for Kay Boyle, an equally interesting and compelling writer who nicely fills in gaps as well as providing an alternative and thought provoking POV.
July 22, 2017
To be honest, I didn't finish this book. I started it because it deals with the greats of the art world in 1920s Paris. But I felt it didn't deal enough with authors I'm familiar with...not the author's fault. It was a very slow read and only vaguely interesting.
October 28, 2016
I have racked my brain trying to remember what made me pick up this book. It may have been because I was considering taking ModPo this fall. (See https://www.coursera.org/learn/modpo for more info about this fascinating course.) It might have been because Kay Boyle keeps coming up in my reading. Whatever it was, I am pleased I picked this memoir up.
I had not heard of Robert McAlmon before. Although I was an English major in college, I didn’t take any courses that covered the American expatriates in any depth. Of course we read Fitzgerald and Hemingway, but I didn’t encounter Gertrude Stein, Djuna Barnes or Mina Loy. Most of the Americans who ended up in Paris were apparently too minor to worry about.
Although much of this book was over my head because I didn’t know the people that Boyle and McAlmon were discussing, it was a fascinating read. It is hard to reproduce any historical period for contemporary readers, but that was not necessary. Both these authors were there for the events they were writing about. I liked the immediacy and was grateful for the glimpse into the past.
I was unable to complete the coursework for Modern and Contemporary American Poetry. I hope to finish it eventually. When I do, I may revisit this book so that I can see if I understand the people in this memoir better. They were not all poets, but that era had a stamp on all of present day American literature.
I recommend this memoir to readers who are interested in learning about literature, to those who like meeting new people and to anyone who has an interest in the history of the period between the two World Wars.
I had not heard of Robert McAlmon before. Although I was an English major in college, I didn’t take any courses that covered the American expatriates in any depth. Of course we read Fitzgerald and Hemingway, but I didn’t encounter Gertrude Stein, Djuna Barnes or Mina Loy. Most of the Americans who ended up in Paris were apparently too minor to worry about.
Although much of this book was over my head because I didn’t know the people that Boyle and McAlmon were discussing, it was a fascinating read. It is hard to reproduce any historical period for contemporary readers, but that was not necessary. Both these authors were there for the events they were writing about. I liked the immediacy and was grateful for the glimpse into the past.
I was unable to complete the coursework for Modern and Contemporary American Poetry. I hope to finish it eventually. When I do, I may revisit this book so that I can see if I understand the people in this memoir better. They were not all poets, but that era had a stamp on all of present day American literature.
I recommend this memoir to readers who are interested in learning about literature, to those who like meeting new people and to anyone who has an interest in the history of the period between the two World Wars.
October 20, 2016
Clever, incisive people. Lots of namedropping, which is good if you happen to be interested in one or more of the expats about whom the gossip is produced.
For me, I suppose it was just the wrong crowd. After about two chapters, I seem to have read enough. I stopped. No regrets.
For me, I suppose it was just the wrong crowd. After about two chapters, I seem to have read enough. I stopped. No regrets.
July 8, 2011
A five star title, with one star writing ...
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