On The Left Bank, 1929-1933.

Athens:: Ohio University Press,, 1987.. First Printing of the First Edition. A Fine tight copy in a Fine dust jacket. Wambly Bald went to Paris in 1929 and worked for the Chicago Tribune where he wrote a weekly column called "La Vie de Boheme." In this column he tried to capture the energy and spirit of Montparnasse through his accounts of the model Kiki, a young writer named Henry Miller, Gertrude Stein and Aleister Crowley to name but a few. The serendipitously named Bald is a funny, unpretentious writer, and because his essays were meant as ephemera, they aren't as dated as much as the ""serious"" reportage of the time. These columns were written for The Chicago Tribune, like a somewhat cracked society column, or in-house newsletter for a wild theater troupe. Bald was a friend of Henry Miller and Hemingway, who apparently paid his passage back home in the 1930's. Apart from his wit, Bald seems to have been a congenial companion who was almost always drunk. The irony is that this lush of a columnist outlived them all. A great first hand look at the expatriate community at its best and worst.