The Paris Pilgrims: A Novel

by Clancy Carlile

He is not yet twenty-three - the callow, unsophisticated, ruggedly six-foot-two Ernest Hemingway who arrives in Paris in 1922 - but with a parcel of war tales and a pocketful of prose he has already begun working on the legend he will become, whether he's carousing with the all-night crowd in the bistros of Montmartre or taking a polite glass of wine at the Cafe Voltaire with James Joyce.
To startling effect biography commingles with fiction in this novel as it introduces a brash but magnetic Hemingway to the high style and bohemian haunts of the artists and exiles who, with unflinching candor, tell his story. For this Hemingway is known by the company he by Mike Strater, a painter he admires and woefully by the "ambisexual" dilettante Robert by the eccentric and resentful Alice B. Toklas, a sympathetic Sylvia Beach, a bemused Nora Joyce; by Hemingway's loyal wife. Hadley, meanwhile strives desperately not only to please but also to comprehend.

Genres: Historical Fiction, Fiction, Paris

460 pages, Hardcover

First published July 1, 1999

Reviews

[Bethany Stephens · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a fictional account of Hemingway's time in Paris, with the author taking liberties and placing many other notable names of the period in Hemingway's supposed circle of acquaintances. Even though Carlile takes a lot of liberties, I loved it and was more than willing to hypothesize what Paris might have been like during that time and around those people.

[Ceil · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great reading about Hemingway, Joyce et al and their early days in Paris, being broke and hanging out at Shakespeare & Co. Interesting insights into Earnest's problems with addiction too.

[Hal Brodsky · Rating 3 out of 5]

Lively, readable fictionalized tale of Hemingway's first 20 months in Paris including the sexual backstories of thirty or so artists, publishers, writers and critics from Sylvia Beach to James Joyce.

Every person in the story except two boxers , two male friends of Hemingway and Pablo Picasso is homosexual, bisexual, asexual, or "ambisexual", except James Joyce and his wife who are into S&M and scatophilia. Googling the real life people in the story, these descriptions seem accurate fitting the author's thesis that Paris was chock full of non-heterosexual artists including Ernest Hemingway and his wife Hadley Richardson.

Still, one wonders if the author did not select people who fit his thesis, leaving Parisian heterosexuals out of the book

What I found frustrating was that most of the events in the book are true, with the dialogue manufactured by the author to paint a picture of Hemingway as a brash bully, chronic liar, homophobe, bad husband, and bad writer.

Per the author, when Hemingway and Richardson leave Europe to have their first child he is broke, shamed, friendless, impotent, known far and wide as a fraud and clearly has no writing talent and no future ahead of him.

Well, as the author got that wrong, I wonder what else is incorrect.

[Cindy · Rating 2 out of 5]

I am sure some of his stories are pretty accurate. He certainly paints an unflattering portrait of Hemingway and the dissolute lifestyle of the "Paris Pilgrims" that I have always heard to be true. I did a lot of eye rolling and skimming in this book and the next I will add. I was reading them at same time and this has convinced me I need to modify my book finding process and not simply rely on the bargain shelf at HP Books. Sometimes I find a deal on a gem, but most times they are duds.

[Jessica · Rating 5 out of 5]

I remember loving this book! ... I was devastated when I found out that the author died before it was completed.

[Terry Chess · Rating 2 out of 5]

Not so much a novel with a continuing story, but a series of episodes in which Hemingway, Gertrude Stein, Ezra Pound, James Joyce, etc. are featured. Frankly, most of the persons portrayed are not that likeable, especially Hemingway. The great writer, bordering on the obnoxious, is a braggart and a liar. We are treated to repeated accounts of lesbianism and homosexuality(It gets a little old after a while). Having said this, I don't think it's a bad book. But it could have been so much better.

[Aggie Herda · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great book. Even though it's a novel, it reads like biography with in-depth insights into the 'characters' of the literary world in 1920's Paris.

[Sharon · Rating 2 out of 5]

I didn't really like this book. I didn't particularly like the people. Not much really happens except a LOT of drinking, sex (real and imagined) and bad poetry. I picked this one up because I've read a lot lately about, by and around Hemingway (a character no one could have imagined as vividly as he lived himself). I put it down several times and read other books while giving it a break, thinking it would be better the next time I picked it up. Finally plowed through the end last night and it just left me feeling kind of sad. So this is not a recommendation.

[Trenity · Rating 2 out of 5]

It’s Hemingway fan fiction. Learning that it was published posthumously affirmed this further.

[Alan · Rating 3 out of 5]

A Moveable Feast with more details, more dialogue. The writing is awkward, while trying to debunk or downplay Hemingway as a poser, braggart, et al. Joyce gets good play.

[Phyllis Fredericksen]

Drivel....nuff said! Not worth even one star.