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Abroad: An Expatriate’s Diaries 1950-1959
Hers is the most authentic voice I’ve heard from the expat fifties. She brings to life a seminal decade in literary and sexual history, one that she and her fellow expats, coming home, passed on to the next generation of Americans who thought that they had invented the Sexual Revolution. This is an essential book. And a damn good story as well!
Edward Field , author of The Man Who Would Marry Susan Sontag, and Other Intimate Literary Portraits of the Bohemian Era A well-observed account of the texture of life for those resistant spirits who actively held out against the cultural norms of 1950’s America. To read Abroad is to take a wander down the pleasure path of a sadly bygone era.
Moe Angeles , Performer/Playwright, Creator of the theater piece Reborn Abroad is a beautifully felt and rendered story of a fascinating woman in a fascinating time. Harriet Zwerling’s account of her life in Paris in the fifties is entertaining and important. Don’t miss this wonderful book.
Mary Dearborn , author of Mistress of The Life of Peggy Guggenheim Abroad , and how! We see in this diary a beautiful, brave young woman escape Cold War America’s stifling paranoias to conduct her own intimate search for the truth of desire. Bravely, she questions pleasure Where is it most to be found? In encounters with men or with women? What are its costs? How does it challenge emotional, mental, and physical well-being? A reader marvels at the vitality with which Harriet Sohmers Zwerling meets those challenges, the honesty with which she records her experience, and the generosity with which she offers the record to us today.
Sarah White , author of Cleopatra Haunts the Hudson and Alice Ages and Ages
Edward Field , author of The Man Who Would Marry Susan Sontag, and Other Intimate Literary Portraits of the Bohemian Era A well-observed account of the texture of life for those resistant spirits who actively held out against the cultural norms of 1950’s America. To read Abroad is to take a wander down the pleasure path of a sadly bygone era.
Moe Angeles , Performer/Playwright, Creator of the theater piece Reborn Abroad is a beautifully felt and rendered story of a fascinating woman in a fascinating time. Harriet Zwerling’s account of her life in Paris in the fifties is entertaining and important. Don’t miss this wonderful book.
Mary Dearborn , author of Mistress of The Life of Peggy Guggenheim Abroad , and how! We see in this diary a beautiful, brave young woman escape Cold War America’s stifling paranoias to conduct her own intimate search for the truth of desire. Bravely, she questions pleasure Where is it most to be found? In encounters with men or with women? What are its costs? How does it challenge emotional, mental, and physical well-being? A reader marvels at the vitality with which Harriet Sohmers Zwerling meets those challenges, the honesty with which she records her experience, and the generosity with which she offers the record to us today.
Sarah White , author of Cleopatra Haunts the Hudson and Alice Ages and Ages
314 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2014
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
March 26, 2015
Indulgent, yearning but mostly theatrical, Zwerling's journals are a great portrait of 1950s Europe and New York through the eyes of a twentysomething woman. Passages cover the author's time as a translator, art model, and writer for the International Herald Review in Paris (later serving as the inspiration for Jean Seberg's character in "Breathless.") If you're not one for frank sexual adventures and references to D.H. Lawrence's naughtiest bits, this book might not be your cup of tea. Irene Fornes and Susan Sontag are frequently mentioned--if you've read the latter's journals from the 1950s and 60s, Abroad serves as an excellent companion piece to Reborn. Several really great photos of the three women are also included in the book.
January 8, 2024
What a fun read! I liked the note at the end from an older Harriett saying that when she looks back on her journals she regrets nothing.
“Coming home in the metro, I saw a beautiful young nun, walking quickly, with slim, nervous hands twirling her rosary. I kept looking at her and she returned my look with knowing eyes. For some reason, I have always been attracted to nuns ...”
“Here is a quote from Sappho's invocation to Aph-rodite, my translation from French: ‘For if now she flees you, soon she will pursue you; if she won't accept your gifts, well, soon she will give some to you, and if she does not love you now, soon she will, whether she wants to or not.’ Things with Irene are flat and tasteless.”
“Yesterday, I worked on the mime film with Alejandro Jodorowsky. My makeup was wonderful.
I looked like a sinister goddess.”
“Coming home in the metro, I saw a beautiful young nun, walking quickly, with slim, nervous hands twirling her rosary. I kept looking at her and she returned my look with knowing eyes. For some reason, I have always been attracted to nuns ...”
“Here is a quote from Sappho's invocation to Aph-rodite, my translation from French: ‘For if now she flees you, soon she will pursue you; if she won't accept your gifts, well, soon she will give some to you, and if she does not love you now, soon she will, whether she wants to or not.’ Things with Irene are flat and tasteless.”
“Yesterday, I worked on the mime film with Alejandro Jodorowsky. My makeup was wonderful.
I looked like a sinister goddess.”
August 26, 2023
very interesting slice of lesbian life 1950s
Well this book tells exactly why homophobia is a nightmare and ruins lives. All the women in this book who love other women live in fear of discovery and it affects every aspect of their lives. Spoiler alert the author reports to have given up women and gotten married and had kids presumably in her 30s. In my experience she just went underground and enjoyed hetero sexist privilege while satisfying her natural attraction for women in a secret second life whh is very sad. but in this era it was very common.
Well this book tells exactly why homophobia is a nightmare and ruins lives. All the women in this book who love other women live in fear of discovery and it affects every aspect of their lives. Spoiler alert the author reports to have given up women and gotten married and had kids presumably in her 30s. In my experience she just went underground and enjoyed hetero sexist privilege while satisfying her natural attraction for women in a secret second life whh is very sad. but in this era it was very common.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews