Uncertain Future

Uncertain Future | Fyne Robert Fyne Kean University RJFyne@aol.com Uncertain Future Edgar Marquess Branch. A Paris Year: Dorothy andJames T. Farrell, 1931-1932. Ohio University Press. (219 pages; $24.95) In 1931—two years after the horrific stock market crash rattled the world economy—a 27-year-old Chicago-born aspiring writer, whose meager publications included some short stories, stood on the deck of a one-class steamer, the Pennland and watched the New York skyline slowly fade away. A few days later, this vessel would dock at Cherbourg and then a four-hour train ride to Paris. Here, on the high seas, James T. Farrell—with his runaway, pregnant bride of one week, Dorothy, and only $83.00 in his pocket—pondered his uncertain future. What did the City of Lights hold for him? Would some editor agree to accept his manuscript about an adolescent's emerging sexuality? Was France really the mecca for intellectual freedom? Would he finally realize his quest ofbecoming an important man ofletters? Years later, Farrell—who became an internationallyknown author of more than forty books plus a lecturer, social critic, and leftist gadfly—would remember those impecunious twelve months he and Dorothy spent in Paris as the time where his youth ended. During this stay, Farrell experienced major events that shaped his career as a naturalist writer: his struggles with poverty and censorship, the publication of his first novel, and the death of an infant son. What happened? How did the elopers manage without employment, friends, or patron? Who were the influential writers Farrell met? Did Paris, the city that housed the Lost Generation, live up to its name as the place ofdreams? These are some of the questions that Professor Edgar Branch—the eminent Farrell scholar and noted literary critic—answers in his new study A Paris Year: Dorothy and James T. Farrell, 1931-1932. As Professor Branch points out, Farrell was intoxicated with Paris the moment he eyed the little outdoor cafés with people sitting around. From their one dollar a night, Left Bank hotel, the married couple explored the Café Aux Deux Magots, Le Sélect, and the Café du Dôme, hobnobbing with the locals, including Wambly Bald, George Seldes, and Samuel Beckett. Soon they lunched with Ezra Pound where the outspoken expatriate—impressed with some short stories —recommended a British publisher. A few weeks later, better news arrived: the Vanguard Press, a New York firm noted for radical literature, accepted Young Lonigan. Elated, Farrell realized that, finally, his literary career was emerging. But not everything was rosy. The couple's meager cash supply ran out and for the next ten months it was always a touch-and-go situation. Friends occasionally lent them money or picked up the tab at restaurants. Dorothy, after much agonizing, received some help from her Chicago family while Vanguard Press finally sent a $100.00 advance. For the Farrells, life became a series ofups-and-downs. When they had a few francs in their pocket, happiness abounded. When they had spent their last centime, everything seemed bleak. Optimistic by nature, Farrell—the hard-fighter from Chicago's south side—persevered, writing numerous stories, book reviews, essays and drafts for new novels. Nothing, he vowed, would stop him from becoming a writer. Farrell persisted though most of the news was bad. French and English publishers rejected his short stories claiming the content, deemed too candid for legal standards, violated existing censor laws. Back in New York the Young Lonigan début became enmeshed in a legal mumble-jumble as certain neighborhood, vernacular terms were excised and a warning label planned for the dust cover cautioned readers that the book was intended for psychiatrists, doctors, and social workers. To exacerbate matters, they planned an exorbitant $3.75 price tag, virtually insuring poor sales. But the worst event came on December 13th. Farrell's four-day-old son, Sean, died at the American Hospital in Paris because ofdelivery complications. Now Farrell was pushed over the edge. Living cautiously, still keeping a modicum ofcivility, the couple realized that their days in Paris were numbered. When Dorothy regained some strength, they decided to return home. In the...