In The Garret

by Carl van Vechten

In The Garret is a novel written by Carl Van Vechten, first published in 1920. The story follows the life of a young artist named Everett, who lives in a garret apartment in Greenwich Village, New York City. Everett is struggling to make ends meet and pursue his passion for art, while dealing with the challenges of living in poverty. Throughout the novel, Everett interacts with a colorful cast of characters, including his bohemian neighbors, fellow struggling artists, and wealthy patrons of the arts. He falls in love with a beautiful young woman named Lucy, who also happens to be an artist. Their relationship is complicated by their differing social classes and the pressures of their respective careers.As Everett navigates the ups and downs of his artistic pursuits and personal relationships, he grapples with questions of identity, ambition, and the meaning of success. The novel offers a vivid portrayal of life in early 20th-century Greenwich Village, with its vibrant artistic community, social upheavals, and cultural clashes.Overall, In The Garret is a poignant and insightful exploration of the challenges and joys of pursuing one's dreams in the face of adversity. Van Vechten's vivid prose and keen observations of human nature make this novel a timeless classic of American literature.This scarce antiquarian book is a facsimile reprint of the old original and may contain some imperfections such as library marks and notations. Because we believe this work is culturally important, we have made it available as part of our commitment for protecting, preserving, and promoting the world's literature in affordable, high quality, modern editions, that are true to their original work.

348 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1920

About the author

Carl van Vechten (B.A., University of Chicago, 1903) was a photographer, music-dance critic, novelist, and patron of the Harlem Renaissance who served as literary executor for Gertrude Stein.

Van Vechten was among the most influential literary figures of the 1910s and 1920s. He began his career in journalism as a reporter, then in 1906 joined The New York Times as assistant music critic and later worked as its Paris correspondent. His early reviews are collected in Interpreters and Interpretations (1917 and 1920) and Excavations: A Book of Advocacies (1926). His first novel, Peter Whiffle (1922), a first-person account of the salon and bohemian culture of New York and Paris and clearly drawn from Van Vechten's own experiences, and was immensely popular. His most controversial work of fiction is Nigger Heaven (1926), notable for its depiction of black life in Harlem in the 1920s and its sympathetic treatment of the newly emerging black culture.

In the 1930s, Van Vechten turned from fiction to photography. His photographs are in collections at the Museum of Modern Art in New York and elsewhere. An important literary patron, he established the James Weldon Johnson Collection of Negro Arts and Letters at Yale.

Reviews

[Jim Jones · Rating 3 out of 5]

Carl Van Vechten was known as a music critic before he became the great white spokesman for the Harlem Renaissance. In the Garrett is a collection of early essays about music, some more interesting than others. First, not many of us can get too excited about what was going on in the world of classical music 100 years ago. Second, some of Van Vechten’s critical opinions have not aged well (such as writing that Arthur Sullivan is the greatest English composer of the last two centuries!!). However, there are a number of essays here still worth reading: His ode to the sounds of his home state of Iowa, his essay on his love of book collecting, his portrait of Oscar Hammerstein (grandfather of more well-known Oscar Hammerstein), and his love of NY’s music scene, both high and low, still capture the reader’s interest.