Chasing Sylvia Beach (31 page)

“Come now, Lily, we need to go now.”

“Go where?”

“We’ll take the train to our next mission. Let’s go.”

Lily gulped. It was all happening so fast. She watched Louise descend the stairs to the metro.
I can just vanish if I want,
Lily reminded herself.
I’ve proven I can make my own way. I don’t need the Athenaeum Neuf to live a big life.
She took one last look at Paris, 1937, then followed Louise. The further they penetrated the underground system, the fewer people they passed.

After walking in silence for several minutes, Louise finally turned into a deserted, dark tunnel. They descended a short flight of stairs. A train waited, the platform empty. At the open door of the nearest car, Louise gestured her in with a smile. Lily clutched her bag,
Ulysses
heavy inside. Her notebook was in there, too. She hoped to make some notes quickly while it was all still fresh. The women took seats in the empty car. The train started up with a lurch and slowly creaked away, its wheels squealing. Lily closed her eyes and whispered, “Good-bye, Sylvia.”

fin

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Infinite gratitude to the brilliant people who cared about this novel and offered their help and support: David Hicks, Djellel Dida, Jody Berman, Valarie Abney, Gigia Kolouch, Carl Fuermann, Corinne Brown, Dorothy Williams, Niels Schonbeck, Heather Neher, Rosemary Carstens, Aevea, AJ Moses, Melanie Mulhall, Heather Stimmler-Hall, Cameron Kruger, John Talbot, Alyson Stanfield, Dan Blank, Charlie Gilkey, Rich Wagner, my Boulder book club. Thanks to all my writing friends who helped me write the best book I could.

Thank you to Ian Shimkoviak and Alan Hebel of
the
BookDesigners for making this a beautiful book.

Thank you to the Alliance Française de Denver for the cultural and artistic grant that allowed me to do research in Sylvia’s archives. Thank you to the Princeton University Library Special Collections staff for your help. Thanks to La Muse writing retreat and my writing friends there.

Special thanks to Noel Riley Fitch, whose book
Sylvia Beach and the Lost Generation: Literary Paris in the Twenties and Thirties
introduced me to Sylvia Beach so many years ago.

Thank you to my parents and family who have always unconditionally supported my unconventional path.

Much thanks to my Original Impulse community, whose belief in this book and me made it happen

BIBLIOGRAPHY

These were the main books I turned to for research on this time and place.

Beach, Sylvia.
Shakespeare and Company.
New York: Harcourt Brace and Company, 1959.

Benstock, Shari.
Women of the Left Bank.
Austin: University of Texas Press, 1986.

Fitch, Noel Riley.
Sylvia Beach and the Lost Generation: A History of Literary Paris in the Twenties and Thirties.
New York and London: W. W. Norton & Company, 1983.

Flanner, Janet.
Paris Was Yesterday, 1925–1939.
New York and London: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1988.

Hemingway, Ernest.
A Moveable Feast.
New York: Bantam Books, 1965.

MacDougall, Richard, translator.
The Very Rich Hours of Adrienne Monnier.
Winnipeg, MB: Bison Books, 1996.

Weiss, Andrea.
Paris Was a Woman.
San Francisco:Harper, 1995.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Cynthia Morris has been in love with Paris for as long as she can remember. Her literary heroine Sylvia Beach provided inspiration to dare a life of creative adventure. Cynthia is the author of
Create Your Writer’s Life: A Guide to Writing with Joy and Ease
. She coaches writers and artists from Denver and visits France annually.