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PEOPLE & ARTS Tuesday 6 augusT 2019

Rare Steinbeck story, set in Paris, published this week

By HILLEL ITALIE architect with a grudge
Associated Press against the flying buttress
NEW YORK (AP) — Ernest and a poet “whose work
Hemingway wasn’t the was so gloriously obscure
only Great American Writ- that even he did not under-
er with something to say stand it.”
about Paris. But no one has grander
Hemingway’s contempo- thoughts at the Fleas than
rary and fellow Nobel lau- its owner and chef, one M.
reate, John Steinbeck, was Amite, whose imagination
best known for “The Grapes has been fired by receiv-
of Wrath,” ‘’Of Mice and ing a star from the Michelin
Men” and other fiction set Guidebook.
in his native California. “The star did it,” Steinbeck
But he was a world citizen reports. “Ambition fed on
for much of his adult life, the star and grew happy
and he absorbed enough from its feeding. M. Amité
of Paris to write down some dreamed, planned, lived
memories and impressions, and suffered for a second
and add a funny, fictional star.”
spin. Much of the plot centers on
In the mid-1950s, Steinbeck an expected visit from the
wrote a series of columns Michelin reviewer and the
for the French newspa- momentary crisis of Apollo’s
per Le Figaro titled “One This Dec. 10, 1962 file photo shows American Author John Steinbeck, right, receiving the Nobel disappearance. The cat is
American In Paris.” One of Prize for Literature from King Gustav during Award Ceremonies in Stockholm’s Concert Hall in not only M. Amite’s confi-
those pieces, widely be- Sweden. dant, but official taster, his
lieved to have never come Associated Press approval the final step for a
out in English, appears this culture and apparently his becomes a whisper and scholar and a professor of given recipe.
week in the summer issue own literary stature as a se- the timely fury is forgot- English at San Jose State Through coincidences
of The Strand Magazine , rious, even self-important, ten, while the soft verities University, said the author’s more in line with an O. Hen-
a literary quarterly which writer who helped de- persist year after year. We affection inspired the hu- ry story than “The Grapes
has published rare works fine the Great Depression have not survived on great mor of his Le Figaro contri- of Wrath,” the cat and his
by Hemingway, F. Scott through the impoverished things, but on little ones, like butions. palate will leave everyone
Fitzgerald and many oth- but steadfast Joad family a little story I have here.” “His intention was to have satisfied.
ers. of “The Grapes of Wrath.” Unlike Hemingway, Stein- a light touch, to write with “Olympus is not proof
“Steinbeck is seen as a The heroes of “One Ameri- beck had no youthful or an uninformed eye, so just against pity. The Muses can
uniquely American writer, can in Paris” represent a war time experiences in write about ‘little things’ forgive. Having been mis-
who wrote about Ameri- more privileged class: a Paris. During World War II, that delighted him,” she chievous and cruel, they
can themes ... but this story French chef, his trusted he worked in London, Italy told the AP in a recent sometimes make amends,”
casts light on Steinbeck the cat Apollo — and the un- and North Africa as a corre- email. “He loved to write, Steinbeck writes.
international traveler,” says expected zest of Apollo’s spondent for the New York and it didn’t always have “Today, a novelist sits every
Strand Managing Editor catnip. Herald Tribune; he didn’t to be serious. Some of his day at The Amiable Fleas,
Andrew Gulli, who found “I am sometimes criticized arrive in Paris until 1946, the writing is funny, deft, wry, a novelist whose work is so
the Paris story in the online for avoiding the great dis- year after the war ended, engaging. He liked to con- despondent that the whole
Steinbeck archive at the cordant notes of the times when he was in his mid- tact ordinary people.” world flocks to him.
Harry Ransom Center at and closing my ears to 40s. Years later, he would His tale in The Strand is set Tourist buses stop to dis-
the University of Texas at the drums of daily doom,” acknowledge that his view in a restaurant called “The gorge pilgrims, and even
Austin. Steinbeck notes drolly. “But of the city was “naive,” but Amiable Fleas,” where cynical Parisians rub their
In his Paris piece, Steinbeck I have found that the mo- “it is an eye of delight.” Su- patrons include a painter hands and lick their lips
teases the French café mentary sound very shortly san Shillinglaw, a Steinbeck whose work is invisible, an when they enter.”q
‘Lost You’ is psychological thriller

By BRUCE DESILVA take her toddler Ethan to a The story involves a shady previous stand-alone thriller
Associated Press Florida resort to celebrate company that arranges because he didn’t want
“Lost You: a Novel” the start of her new life as a surrogate births, a barren to confuse fans who have
(Crown), by Haylen Beck published author. Libby whose history has come to expect his books
Surrogacy — in which a But the good times turn bad left her with a dangerously to be part of his Belfast
woman agrees to carry a when she turns her head obsessive need to raise crime series.
baby for another person or for a moment. Ethan jumps a child, an impoverished “Lost You” toys with read-
couple — is a legal swamp on an elevator, the doors young Anna who agrees ers’ emotions, making
in America, and in this, vet- close, and he’s gone. to carry Libby’s husband’s them fearful for both Libby
eran crime novelist Stuart At first, she fears Ethan has baby for money and a snarl and Anna at times, fearful
Neville, writing under the been lost, but she soon of state laws. of both at times and un-
pen name Haylen Beck, realizes it’s worse — that Neville, an Irish novelist certain until the very end
has found the makings of Ethan has been found. whose previous work has about who — if anyone —
an emotionally wrenching The bulk of the book con- made the best-seller lists is in the right.
psychological thriller. sists of a flashback in which of The New York Times and The story unravels at an
“Lost You” begins when This cover image released by readers learn how Libby the Los Angeles Times, says anxiety-inducing pace,
Libby, recently abandoned Crown shows “Lost You,” a and Ethan arrived at this he adopted the pen name and shocking twists appear
novel by Haylen Beck.
by her husband, decides to Associated Press moment. Haylen Beck for this and a around every corner.q