?A beautiful ode to Sylvia Beach, the renowned Shakespeare and Company owner, a real-life heroine who has left her mark on us all.?
?Marie Benedict, New York Times bestselling coauthor of The Personal Librarian

?Maher vividly reimagines the indomitable Beach, who struggled for years to get Ulysses published.... In one poignant scene, Maher has Beach declaring: ?Censorship is not commensurate with democracy. Or art,? a comment that still rings true.?
?The Washington Post

?Wholly immersive, a literary romp through Left Bank Paris?an enchanting glimpse of the storied lost generation through a female gaze.?
?Toronto Star
 
?Maher?s new historical novel The Paris Bookseller is at once a paean to Beach, and a love letter to bookstores and libraries.?
?The Boston Globe

?Kerri Maher?s The Paris Bookseller is a worthy homage to Sylvia Beach and a love letter to all bookstores, libraries, and the passionate and committed women who run them.? 
?New York Journal of Books

?If you ever dreamed you could transport yourself to Paris in the twenties, to Sylvia Beach's famous bookstore, Shakespeare and Company, where Joyce, Hemingway, and Pound wandered the aisles, this story?s for you. Maher?s magical touch brings to life a woman whose struggles resonate in today?s world, while also examining the intricacies of friendship, fortitude, and the love of the written word.?
?Fiona Davis, New York Times bestselling author of The Lions of Fifth Avenue

?The Paris Bookseller is a novel I long to live in, a vivid evocation of the famous female-owned Parisian bookshop Shakespeare and Company which acted as haven and home to the literati of pre-WWII Europe. Heroine and shop owner Sylvia Beach shepherds seemingly all of the great writers of the 20th century with an appealing blend of warmth, wit, frustration, and understanding. Kerri Maher writes a love letter to books, bookstores, and booklovers everywhere.?
?Kate Quinn, New York Times bestselling author of The Rose Code

"A story about Paris and bookshops was bound to find a place in my heart but this one has the pièce de résistance: the character of Sylvia Beach. I was completely enthralled by Beach?s life and her tenacity in founding the first English-language bookshop in Paris, while also publishing James Joyce?s epic but controversial Ulysses. With an abundance of delightful cameos from all of your favourite literary heroes as well as a fascinating rendering of Paris?s glory days during the 1920s and 30s, this novel will transport you as only the best historical fiction can.?
?Natasha Lester, New York Times bestselling author of The Paris Secret

?Midnight in Paris meets A Moveable Feast in this intimate, in-depth look at the brave and visionary woman who founded one of the world's most iconic bookstores, Shakespeare and Company, on Paris's Left Bank. Studded with appearances from the likes of James Joyce, Ezra Pound, Gertrude Stein, and Ernest Hemingway, The Paris Bookseller brings alive not only interwar Paris, but also the complicated friendship that led to the publication of Joyce's epic Ulysses and helped pave the way for Paris's enduring English-language literary legacy. If you've ever fallen in love with a bookstore, you'll love this ode to booksellers and to the power and magic of the written word.?
?Kristin Harmel, New York Times bestselling author of The Forest of Vanishing Stars

?The Paris Bookseller is a beautifully written homage to those who keep literature alive and to the quirky inhabitants of the literary community whose work sometimes transcends their personal failings. With an open heart and vivid prose, Maher brings to life a lost age and I can't wait to see what this talented author will tackle next.?
?Stephanie Dray, New York Times bestselling author of The Women of Chateau Lafayette

?In her latest, Maher throws open a window to 1920s Paris and the Lost Generation, dropping readers into the fascinating true story of one woman?s fight to save a masterpiece. Maher weaves a tale that is atmospheric, heartfelt, and brimming with life, leaving no doubt a novel is a living, breathing thing.?
?Michelle Gable, New York Times bestselling author of A Paris Apartment and The Bookseller?s Secret

?This compelling biographical novel perfect for lit lovers follows Sylvia Beach and the founding of bookstore Shakespeare and Company in Paris?. Come for the love of books and Sapphic passion and stay for the frequent cameos by the likes of Ezra Pound and Ernest Hemingway.?
?BuzzFeed Books

?A fine tribute to a tireless and selfless champion of literary genius.?
?Kirkus

?In a novel exuberant, bittersweet, and reflective by turns, Maher explores the life of Sylvia Beach?readers will emerge with sincere appreciation for the artistic spirit and courage of a remarkable woman.?
?Historical Novel Society

?Recommended to fans of Paula McLain?s The Paris Wife and anyone who enjoyed Hemingway's A Moveable Feast.?
?Booklist (starred review)

?The Paris Bookseller is a beautiful window into the life of a fascinating woman who defied convention in almost every area of her life and succeeded in publishing one of the most controversial novels of the early twentieth century?. The emotional depth that Maher gives to historical figures who have achieved almost mythological status in our cultural ethos is riveting and leaves readers with a lingering sense of familiarity that won?t soon be forgotten.?
?Manhattan Book Review

?Dazzling like Paris, rich and immersive like the work it celebrates, and bursting with heart and passion like every great bookstore, The Paris Bookseller is a dream for book lovers from start to finish.?
?Steven Rowley, Bestselling author of The Editor and The Guncle

?Kerri Maher vividly transports us back in time to the establishment of the world?s most famous and beloved bookstore, Shakespeare and Company. Its founder, Sylvia Beach is brilliantly portrayed as is her fight to publish one of the greatest novels ever written. Filled with such literary luminaries as James Joyce, Ernest Hemingway and F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Paris Bookseller is a bibliophile?s dream come true.?
?Renée Rosen, USA Today bestselling author of The Social Graces

?The Paris Bookseller is a compelling portrait of a remarkable woman, who steps from the pages in all her charm, courage and vulnerability. It?s also a colourful snapshot of literary Paris in the 1920s, with its glamour and gossip, ogres and egos. Meticulously researched yet above all a page-turning story, this is historical fiction at its best.?
?Gill Paul, USA Today bestselling author of The Collector's Daughter

?If you've ever gotten lost in the narrow, deliciously overcrowded aisles of Shakespeare and Company, or you just want to imagine you have, this is the novel for you. Kerri Maher brings to life the fascinating history of Shakespeare and Company and its founder, Sylvia Beach, whose vision and drive led her to create not only a world-famous bookstore, but to defy the censors and publish the first edition of Joyce's Ulysses. Intelligent, fierce, and filled with reverence for a fascinating epoch in literary history, The Paris Bookseller is a delight for readers and writers.?
?Whitney Scharer, Author of The Age of Light

?The Paris Bookseller is at once a moving love letter to 1920s Paris, an insight into the Lost Generation, and an ode to a woman's fight for freedom.It brings to life the all-consuming relationship between a bookseller and a work of art in such a compelling way that I couldn't stop turning the pages, and I closed the book yearning for a place like Shakespeare and Company. A sparkling read.?
?Evie Dunmore, USA Today bestselling author of Bringing Down the Duke
 
?Maher offers an alluring look at the history of Paris?s Shakespeare and Company bookstore?Maher?s portrayal of Sylvia ably capitalizes on the historical figure?s singular life, highlighting how the bookseller and publisher embraced the progressive literature of the time and established a loving partnership with Adrienne that would not have been accepted in the U.S.?
?Publishers Weekly

?The Paris Bookseller brings to life this influential woman and her struggles to honor her love of literature following her decision to publish Ulysses and the financial crises that the Great Depression brings.?
?SheReads

?The Paris Bookseller is a wonderful tribute to the visionary woman who fought for freedom of speech and changed the landscape of literature forever. By bringing a memorable cast of quirky and charming artistic giants to life, Kerri Maher deftly creates an intimate look at the story behind Shakespeare and Company, one of the most beloved landmarks for readers everywhere. I was captivated by this fascinating story!?
?Elise Hooper, Author of Fast Girls
 
?A love letter to the extraordinary people who made interwar Paris the place to be for book lovers. With distinctive prose and honesty, Kerri brings to life the glory days of Paris?s most unforgettable bookstore, illuminating a world where leading literary lights await us on every page ? and spotlighting the woman who united them all, Miss Sylvia Beach.?
?Bryn Turnbull, Author The Woman Before Wallis

?The unexpected bonus in this mesmerizing novel is the saga of Sylvia Beach?s friendship with James Joyce and her decision to publish Ulysses when publishers showed no interest, a difficult decision made even more difficult by Joyce himself. The Paris Bookseller drops you in the middle of Paris and delicious, intimate encounters with literary greats and soon-to-be-greats who frequented Shakespeare and Company in the years between the world wars.?
?Janie Chang, Author of Dragon Springs Road and The Library of Legends

?Kerri Maher?s The Paris Bookseller tells the captivating story of Sylvia Beach, her famed bookstore Shakespeare and Company, and the tremendous role both played in the artistic landscape of interwar Paris. Here literary giants are brought to vivid life in the aisles of a charming Parisian bookshop, and we see not only their humanity, but also their courage in forging new paths in a changing world. Inspiring, fascinating, and delightful, this story will resonate with readers long after the final page.?
?Kristin Beck, Author of Courage, My Love

?Absorbing, intricate, and beautifully told, The Paris Bookseller is the unforgettable true story of Sylvia Beach, a champion of modern literature who made enormous sacrifices in the struggle to publish James Joyce?s classic novel, Ulysses, while also establishing Shakespeare and Company, a bookstore that became the Parisian home for literary luminaries of her day. With all the color and verve of post WWI Paris and the deep love of literature that pervades every page, The Paris Bookseller is a novel for book lovers to treasure.?
?Christine Wells, author of Sisters of the Resistance

?Amid Shakespeare and Company?s ups and downs?Sylvia and Adrienne create a loving partnership in a time when queer relationships were far less accepted, even in Paris?With its insider?s view of the literary expat world of 1920s Paris, The Paris Bookseller will appeal to fans of Paula McClain?s The Paris Wife.?
?BookPage

?The Paris Bookseller lulls you into an interwar Parisian dream where love?be it romantic, friendly, or even for a book?can be found on a quirky little street in the 6th. Kerri Maher?s pen skillfully imagines the life of American expat Sylvia Beach and her bookstore Shakespeare and Company in the 1920s and 1930s. This book is a charming escape into the real life literary paradise that was once known as Odeonia.?
?Kaia Alderson, author of Sisters in Arms

?With a cast of characters that span the Lost Generations? literary pantheon, The Paris Bookseller offers up both a sweeping story of artistic creativity in the face of censorship as well as an intimate portrait of one woman?s struggle to remain true to herself. Maher?s lush writing and rich historical detail will have you thinking about Sylvia and her bookshop long after you?ve turned the final page.?
?Alex Rickloff, Author of The Way to London

?Kerri Maher leads us through Bohemian Paris in the 1920s with all the joie de vivre we could hope for. Through love and books, a fresh Sylvia Beach creates a new life after meeting impressive Parisian bookseller Adrienne Monnier, and by the arrival of Irish writer James Joyce in their circle. A compelling and fascinating look at the world-changing mavericks who bonded, bickered, and triumphed in the realm of literature.?
?Nuala O?Connor, author of Nora: A Love Story of Nora and James Joyce

"A scrupulously-researched, enchanting novel, The Paris Bookseller is a feast of literary pre-war Paris. I was transported by Maher?s portrait of the iconic Sylvia Beach and her magical bookshop."
?Michaela Carter, author of Leonora In the Morning Light

?Kerri Maher?s enchanting historical novel follows American Sylvia Beach, founder of the storied Paris bookshop Shakespeare and Company, as she opens her doors in 1919 and then courageously commits to publishing her friend James Joyce?s Ulysses, which had been banned in the United States.?
?The Christian Science Monitor

Praise for The Girl in White Gloves

?The stunning and very human story of a beloved icon....Full of nuance and poignancy?this novel is gorgeous.?
?Allison Pataki, New York Times bestselling author of The Queen?s Fortune

?[A] fascinating, deeply researched novel of the extraordinary Grace Kelly...establishes Maher as a true force in biographical fiction.?
?Beatriz Williams, New York Times bestselling author of The Golden Hour
 
?A captivating look behind the scenes at the life of the iconic Grace Kelly...as she searches for authenticity in a world clamoring instead for a picture-perfect princess.?
?Marie Benedict, New York Times bestselling author of The Only Woman in the Room
 
?Daring and deep. Maher successfully lifts the curtain of mystery that surrounded a princess and a movie star, revealing a headstrong, complex woman with a riveting story to tell.?
?Fiona Davis, National bestselling author of The Chelsea Girls
 
?In The Girl in White Gloves, Kerri Maher beautifully envisions the reality of this fairy-tale life. This deeply researched novel is perfect for fans of Grace Kelly, royal-watchers, and fans of biographical fiction alike.?
?PopSugar

?In this charming, picturesque novel, readers are swept away?this story is a glimpse into the dazzling life of a classic and beloved star.?
?Woman?s World

?Maher's bio-fic feels as if it was written by Kelly herself. The novel spins a fascinating version of the Philly native's life, from princess of Hollywood to Princess of Monaco.?
?Philadelphia Magazine

Praise for The Kennedy Debutante

?A riveting reimagining of a true tale of forbidden love.?
?People

?Maher?s debut stars a debutante to root for in this moving coming-of-age tale.?
?Kate Quinn, New York Times bestselling author of The Alice Networkand The Huntress

?Maher beautifully mixes the red-blooded American iconography of the Kennedys with the delicious and Downton Abbey-esque grandeur of Britain's upper crusts?[Kick] proves a poignant and captivating subject, and her story will make your heart lurch in the best possible ways.?
?Allison Pataki, New York Times bestselling author of The Accidental Empress

?A vivid and engrossing portrayal of the fascinating life of Kathleen ?Kick? Kennedy. Maher offers a dazzling glimpse of London society filled with a rich, nuanced, and infamous cast of characters alongside a poignant depiction of the emotional cost of war. A stunning debut!?
?Chanel Cleeton, New York Times bestselling author of Next Year in Havana, a Reese Witherspoon Book Club Pick
 
?Kerri Maher has crafted a compelling, insightful look into the complexities of the Kennedy era and one of its most fascinating daughters. Expertly researched, this is a remarkable debut.?
?Susan Meissner, Bestselling author of As Bright as Heaven

?You will be swept up, first and foremost, by its vivid, captivating heroine. Kick Kennedy was naive and privileged, to be sure, but in Maher's masterful portrait, she is also a bold young woman living at a precarious moment in history, eager to make her mark on the world as fearlessly as she will follow her heart.?
?Julia Glass, Author of A House Among the Trees and the National Book Award?winning Three Junes
The dramatic story of how a humble bookseller fought against incredible odds to bring one of the most important books of the 20th century to the world in this new novel from the author of The Girl in White Gloves. When bookish young American Sylvia Beach opens Shakespeare and Company on a quiet street in Paris in 1919, she has no idea that she and her new bookstore will change the course of literature itself. Shakespeare and Company is more than a bookstore and lending library: Many of the prominent writers of the Lost Generation, like Ernest Hemingway, consider it a second home. It's where some of the most important literary friendships of the twentieth century are forged?none more so than the one between Irish writer James Joyce and Sylvia herself. When Joyce's controversial novel Ulysses is banned, Beach takes a massive risk and publishes it under the auspices of Shakespeare and Company. But the success and notoriety of publishing the most infamous and influential book of the century comes with steep costs. The future of her beloved store itself is threatened when Ulysses' success brings other publishers to woo Joyce away. Her most cherished relationships are put to the test as Paris is plunged deeper into the Depression and many expatriate friends return to America. As she faces painful personal and financial crises, Sylvia?a woman who has made it her mission to honor the life-changing impact of books?must decide what Shakespeare and Company truly means to her. Read less
KERRI MAHER is the national bestselling author of The Girl in White Gloves, The Kennedy Debutante, and, under the name Kerri Majors, This Is Not a Writing Manual: Notes for the Young Writer in the Real World. She holds an MFA from Columbia University and lives with her daughter and dog in a leafy suburb west of Boston, Massachusetts.
Chapter 1

It was hard not to feel that Paris was the place.

Sylvia had been trying to get back for fifteen years, ever since the Beach family had lived there when her father, Sylvester, was the pastor of the American Church in the Latin Quarter and she was a romantic teenager who couldn't get enough of Balzac or cassoulet. What she remembered most about that time, what she'd carried in her heart when her family had to return to the United States, was the sense that the French capital was brighter than any other city she'd been in or could ever be in. It was more than the flickering gas lamps that illuminated the city after dark, or that ineluctable, glowing white stone from which so much of the city was built?it was the brilliance of the life burbling in every fountain, every student meeting, every puppet show in the Jardin du Luxembourg and opera in the Théâtre de l'Odéon. It was the way her mother sparkled with life, read books, and hosted professors, politicians, and actors, serving them rich, glistening dishes by candlelight at dinners where there was spirited debate about books and world events. Eleanor Beach told her three daughters?Cyprian, Sylvia, and Holly?that they were living in the most rare and wonderful of places, and it would change the course of their lives forever.

Nothing had compared, not making posters and answering phones and knocking on doors with Cyprian and Holly and Mother for the National Woman's Party in New York; not adventuring in Europe solo and reveling in the spires and cobblestones of many other cities; not her first longed-for kiss with her classmate Gemma Bradford; not winning the praise of her favorite teachers.

But here she was now, actually living in the city that had captured her soul.

From the rooms she shared with Cyprian in the staggeringly beautiful if also crumbling Palais Royale, Sylvia made her way down to the Pont Neuf and crossed to the other side of the Seine, breathing in the wind from the river that whipped her short locks of hair across her face and threatened to extinguish her cigarette. She stopped in the middle of the bridge to look east and admire Notre-Dame Cathedral, with its symmetrical Gothic towers flanking the rose window and the precariously dainty buttresses whose strength still dumbfounded her?they'd been holding up those gargantuan walls for centuries.

Soon she was winding her way through the narrower streets of the Latin Quarter, which were still familiar from her adolescent wanderings. Though she got a tiny bit lost, it was happily so, because it gave her an opportunity to admire the Église de Saint-Germaine-des-Prés and ask instructions of a pretty French student sipping café crème at a sidewalk table at Les Deux Magots. At last she stopped at 7 rue de l'Odéon, the location of A. Monnier, bookseller.

The facade of Madame?ou, peut-être, mademoiselle??Monnier's little shop was painted a pleasing shade of gray with a pale script bearing the proprietress's name above the large picture windows. When Sylvia pushed open the door, a single bell jingled cheerfully. A scattering of people stood here and there among the floor-to-ceiling shelves stocked heartily with books; they were reading and browsing spines, but no one was talking and so it was as silent as an empty church. Feeling suddenly shy about asking her question, Sylvia looked around and postponed her request.

She was glad she did, for she discovered some beautiful editions of her favorite French novels, and read nearly an entire short story in the latest issue of Vers et Prose, and as she did the shop stirred to life around her. Customers made register-clanging purchases and chattier couples entered, filling the place with sound.

Plucking the book she'd come to buy off the shelf, along with the journal she'd been absorbed in, Sylvia went to the desk with the big brass cash register, where a striking woman of about her own age stood smiling with her slim lips and Mediterranean-blue eyes, the contrast of her dove-white skin and raven hair making her impossible not to look at. In her mind, Sylvia heard Cyprian criticize the woman's outfit as old fashioned, with its floor-length skirt and the blouse buttoned all the way up, both overly modest barriers to the voluptuous figure beneath, but Sylvia liked everything about the look of this woman. She seemed like the kind of person one could talk to. There was something more, too, though; Sylvia felt such a strong urge to stroke the woman's smooth cheek.

"Did you find . . . your heart's desire?" the woman asked in heavily accented English.

My heart's desire? Sylvia smiled at the typically French passion in the woman's plainly spoken words, then replied in French, "Yes, I did, though I'm disappointed you knew I wasn't French." Languages were something of a gift to her; she spoke three fluently. She was gratified to see that as soon as she spoke, the woman appeared impressed by her accent.

"Where are you from?" she asked, in French this time, using the formal vous.

"The United States. Most recently Princeton, New Jersey, near New York City. My name is Sylvia, by the way. Sylvia Beach."

The woman clapped her hands together and exclaimed, "Les États-Unis! The home of Benjamin Franklin! But he is my favorite! I am Adrienne Monnier."

Sylvia laughed, as it somehow made perfect sense that this pretty girl in the outdated clothes should so admire her own favorite founding father. Mademoiselle indeed; not madame in the slightest. "Pleased to meet you, Mademoiselle Monnier. Your shop is very special. And I like Ben Franklin, too," she admitted. "But have you read any Hawthorne? Thoreau? What about Moby Dick? That's one of my favorites."

And they were off. Sylvia learned all about what American authors had and had not been translated into French, and also how difficult it was to come by English-language books even in cosmopolitan Paris. "And anyway," Adrienne admitted with a demure flicker of her lashes to the floor, "my English is not good enough to read the great literature in its mother tongue."

"Perhaps not yet," Sylvia assured her, feeling her heart grow and glow in her chest. Something was passing between them, and it was more than just books, she was sure of it. Her hands felt clammy with it.

"There you are, Adrienne," sang a lilting and lovely voice from behind Sylvia.

She turned and saw a stunning waif of a woman, with a thick and wavy mane of reddish-blond hair piled atop her head, who wore a similar ensemble to Adrienne's, though it fit her slight frame entirely differently. Her fingers were long and slim and moved airily, as if they were not entirely under the control of the woman who possessed them. But when they rested on Adrienne's shorter, thicker hand, Sylvia could see the intent there and knew immediately the two women were lovers.

And there she'd been thinking that she and Adrienne were flirting. Already, they'd slipped into using the familiar tu instead of vous.

The warmth and admiration in Adrienne's smile at this woman, who now stood shoulder to shoulder with her, opened a painful fissure in Sylvia's heart. These two women had something here, together and in the store. Something she'd been looking for a long time but hadn't known she wanted?needed?until she saw it. Was this something she could make happen, for herself? What was this anyway? Sylvia felt suddenly disoriented, knocked off balance by her surroundings: the store, the women, the books, the baritone hum of the other patrons.

"Suzanne," said Adrienne, "Please meet our new friend Sylvia Beach, of the United States. Sylvia, this is Suzanne Bonnierre, my business partner."

In an overly enthusiastic gesture, Sylvia thrust out her hand, which Suzanne appeared amused to shake. "It's a pleasure to meet you, Mademoiselle Beach."

"Sylvia, please," she said. "What an amazing store you have here. It's so cozy and inviting, and you stock only the best." Though she did wonder why Suzanne's was not part of the name of the store. Well, Sylvia supposed, Monnier and Bonnierre, however charming they looked and sounded together, might have been a bit too obvious, liberal as Paris was about such things. Just the other night, Cyprian had stuffed Sylvia into a pantsuit and donned a sequined dress herself, then enveloped them both in full-length cloaks for the metro ride to a new bar on the rue Edgar-Quinet where the clientele was entirely women, half of whom wore monocles and spats. The establishment looked like any other local watering hole from the outside, with a small awning simply labeled bar, but once they were inside, the loud, jazzy openness of the place had made Sylvia uncomfortable. She'd told herself to relax and enjoy the fact that she was living somewhere such an establishment could prosper, somewhere she could be entirely honest about her attractions and a woman in a tweed suit and cap could sing Billy Murray tunes; it was even protected by the law because same-sex relations had been decriminalized in the French Revolution. But she didn't enjoy feeling like another piece of fruit in a market. The reader in her preferred the quiet and subtlety of A. Monnier.

"Why thank you," Suzanne replied. "I have never been to your country, but I have heard and read many wonderful things about it. It has been quite an inspiration to France, of course."

"There might be many excellent things about my country, but I'm glad to be here instead," Sylvia replied, her mind going straight to the rise in censorship under the Comstock and Espionage Acts, the long and precarious slog to women's suffrage, and the outrageous idea of an alcohol prohibition that was spreading like wildfire. It seemed like ideas that had once seemed fringe, too strange to contemplate as serious, had taken root in America while good, strong ideas that would help the country progress into the new century were languishing away.

"We are also glad you're here," Adrienne said, beaming.

"You must come to the reading tonight!" Suzanne exclaimed. "Our dear friends Valery Larbaud and Léon-Paul Fargue will be there. And Jules Romains. You know these writers?"

"Of course I do! It would be an honor to meet them." The prospect also set Sylvia's stomach churning. Jules Romains? Vraiment? What could she possibly have to say to him?

"Come back at eight. We pay no attention to the air raids anymore."

Well. There was simply no concentrating on her Spain essay after that. Sitting at her little desk in the Palais, Sylvia kept catching the scent of dust and lavender that reminded her of A. Monnier?the shop and the woman, both?and every time she buried her nose in her sleeves to find the source of it, she found it was always elusive.

She couldn't help thinking that this distraction was just one more sign she was not destined to be a writer, despite the fact that after all the reading she'd done in her life, everyone around her, from her parents and sisters to her oldest friend, Carlotta Welles, just assumed she would be one.

"There's a Walt Whitman in you," her father told her every time she brought home another high mark on a school essay. "I just know it."

But essays were not poems, or novels. When she tried her hand at verse or a story, it came out all wrong. She adored Whitman. To try to be anything remotely like him?or Kate Chopin or any of the Brontë sisters, for that matter?almost seemed an insult. It didn't help that as she grew older, she began to prefer the writers she saw successfully continuing Whitman's legacy, singing so startlingly of themselves and the world that she would sometimes complete one of their works and lie awake half the night wondering, How do they do it? How do they reach inside me, put their fist around my very soul, and rattle it in its cage? It had been like that with Chopin's The Awakening especially, and also with James Joyce's Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man. Oh god, she felt a roiling stew of lust and admiration and jealousy thinking of both those novels. The exquisite honesty with which they wrote about bodies and their cravings, and the guilt and consequences of those cravings, using words strung into unsettling sentences that embodied the very nature of the character's inner turmoil, made Sylvia sweat in her sheets.

Could she ever write so bravely, knowing her minister father, whom she loved dearly, would read every word? It was one thing for him to quietly accept her spinsterhood, and perhaps even her discreet sapphism?for he'd never encouraged her to marry and he'd never questioned the friendships she'd had with women, which after all had run the gamut between entirely platonic and, rarely, heart-wrenchingly intimate?but it would be quite another thing for her to write about her desires with the kind of honesty she admired in the new writing she was starting to see in the more progressive journals.

Could she write about her own deepest longings with abandon, without abandoning herself? Could she help fill the pages of her favorite journal, The Little Review, which its editor Margaret Anderson had boldly left entirely blank in 1916, publishing twenty-odd white pages with only an editorial saying that she was no longer willing to publish good enough writing; everything she published had to be true art. Art that would remake the world. And Sylvia believed with all her heart that this was the purpose of art?to be new, to make change, to alter minds.

She recalled her mother's reply to her father's suggestion about Whitman: "Or maybe she'll be the next Elizabeth Cady Stanton." Why did her parents have to pick such big shoes for her to fill? Was it their fault she was secretly jealous of Cyprian's success in acting?

In some ways, Cyprian was the reason they were in Paris at all, so Sylvia supposed she ought to be grateful. Her sister had a recurring part in a popular weekly film called Judex, which was so well known that the two of them were regularly stopped in the street and asked for autographs; occasionally, someone would even ask Sylvia for her signature, assuming she was some sort of up-and-comer hanging around with the glittering, gorgeous star. Sylvia would sigh and reflect that it had always been this way between her and her younger sister. Even at thirty years old, Sylvia was still riled that Cyprian could rely on her arresting looks to get attention, while she toiled in libraries and at desks, hoping her words and ideas might be discovered someday.

?It?s always adolescent boys and little girls, though,? Cyprian would complain after signing another napkin or cardboard coaster. ?Where are the ducs and other admirers of means??

?You know they exist, sister darling. They?re the ones sending you Veuve and Pernod at the Ritz.? And anyway, you only want the male attention for the status of it. Cyprian was more willing to attach herself to a man than Sylvia, who?d entirely sworn off the idea of marriage, even a marriage of convenience that could provide her with a livelihood and some camouflage. Joining her identity with that of a man, even one who preferred sharing his bed with another man, was simply not appealing. For joining, she?d noticed, almost always meant subsuming. And even though Sylvia was one of very few people on earth who knew her sister preferred the affections of women, Cyprian liked to act parts that flattered her, and helped her afford Chanel dresses and Italian shoes, indulging a taste for finer things she?d inherited from their mother.

?If I could just get a part onstage, they could send flowers to my room? was her familiar lament.

When at last it was time for her to return to the rue de l?Odéon, Sylvia took the metro and then paced the cobblestone courtyard in front of the Odéon Theater up the street for half an hour, chain-smoking and rehearsing possible topics of conversation to have with famous writers, before she told herself she was being silly and marched into Adrienne?s shop.

In the summer twilight, the lamps were soft and the conversation bright. Adrienne and Suzanne swanned about the room, pouring drinks, touching backs, inciting laughter. Adrienne especially?the other guests competed for a chance to wave her over. A veritable Hestia of books, she was otherwise engaged in deep and serious conversation with a small group when Suzanne introduced Sylvia to Valery Larbaud and Jules Romains. Both men kissed her on each cheek as if they?d known each other for years. ?Monnier has been telling us all about you,? Romains informed her. ?That you are a reader, and that you enjoy the American transcendentalists. I wonder if you also like Baudelaire? Of the same period here in France??

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