That Summer in Paris

Matt Hartman is a freelance editor and cataloguer, running Hartman Cataloguing, Editing and Indexing Services.

It’s a pleasure to reread Callaghan’s version of the Paris summer of 1929. Published originally in 1963, the book has as much warm appeal now, in this new paperback edition, as it did 25 years ago. In the sixties, Hemingway and Fitzgerald had slipped from the pedestal as giants of American literature. One of the quirks of the period was the demands it placed upon the reputations of its heroes, disintegrating and re-integrating artists into the cultural main-stream.

When Callaghan went to Paris after leaving the Toronto Star, it was with the expectation of meeting with Hemingway, whom he had known slightly in Toronto, Fitzgerald, and others who had read and supported his earliest short stories. The Hemingway he found in Paris became a friend and an enigma. The Fitzgerald he found became a confidant. And the relationship between the two novelists became in itself a drama played out in damaged egos and false pride, with Callaghan as often as not serving as catalyst.

In the boxing ring and in the cafés, the talk and the drinking and the exploration of writing and of friendship provide the author with a wealth of materials. Male bonding, if you like, among the intellectuals. Callaghan’s best work, night up to A Time for Judas, has been marked by a clean and stylish meandering prose. His account of that summer in Paris is full of insight and honesty and love for the people and the place. As Hemingway might put it, the people were good; the place was good. And this book is good.