Love From the Coastal Route - Selected Poems - Softcover

Sheila Bender

Softcover

ISBN 10: 096295571X ISBN 13: 9780962955716

Publisher: Duckabush Press, 1991

Synopsis

Ever since she was nine, Beverley had wanted to go to Paris. So finally, after college, she did. She bought a one-way ticket and lived there for three and a half years. These pages tell of those days in the 50s when she lived in a garret, studied at the Sorbonne, attended tea dances at the American Club, bought francs from a black marketer named Freddie. To support herself, she wrote for UNESCO Features and a small news service and filed top secret, but boring, documents for the US Department of Defense. For fun Bev skied in Switzerland and Austria; youth hosteled on the Riviera; dressed up for fashion shows at Schiaparelli and horse races at Auteuil. Along the way, she drank long coffees at the Dome, the Select and the Deux Magots; toured the Tabou and other dark, damp caves; and sipped onion soup at the old Les Halles at 3 a.m. Meanwhile she hung out with various writers and artists, and or course fell in and out of love several times. Finally, after those three and a half years, she sailed back to the US, landed a job as a reporter for the San Francisco Chronicle, then for several more years lived and worked in New York, where she met and married a dashing, martini-loving, New York writer. They had two spirited sons and moved to Bainbridge where Beverley taught ESL. Then, at 70 and solo, with a backpack and laptop, she began going back to Paris, again and again.

About this title

About the Author:

Beverley Lehman West is a transplanted San Franciscan. She lived in Paris and New York before settling on Bainbridge Island in 1977. She has worked as a reporter on the San Francisco Chronicle and taught English as a Second Language at Seattle Central College. She has published stories and poems in regional journals and in a chapbook, For All the Wrong Reasons. One poem won a Washington Poets Association William Stafford award and another a Bumbershoot Big Book award. Bev s new memoir, Finding My Way Back to 1950s Paris, will tell you about her youthful three and a half years exploring Left Bank streets and museums, and writing in cafés. She lived in a garret with a skylight overlooking the rooftops of Paris, studied French, and of course fell in love a few times. Over the last 20 years she has often returned to Paris with a backpack and laptop.

Review:

Fueled by the dream of living in a garret on the Left Bank of Paris, the adventures of Beverley Lehman West transport us through language as natural and genuine as a good glass of Beaujolais at a sidewalk café. Her first bidet, her reading at Shakespeare & Company, her meetings with characters disreputable, famous and famous-to-be these are among the many experiences we come to know intimately through West, an armchair tour guide possessed of gently self-deprecating humor and a knack for uncovering miracles from common experiences. --John Willson, Pushcart Prize winner and author of The Son We Had

Part coming of age story about the author's young twenties spent in Paris learning, experimenting and writing and part about returning trips to the city she loves for "the sounds of the language, the smells of just baked croissants and acrid coffee, the newly-lit Gauloises or Gitanes, the illuminated bridges on the Seine, and of course the cafés..." this book is a treasure for any who love remembering the sustaining excitement of youth. To relive girlhood through the eyes of one's own letters home and through one's vivid memories, to grow up by ensconcing one's self in the post-war culture of France in the 1950s! Ahhhh, Paris! --Sheila Bender, teacher and author of Writing It Real

Hop on the express-to-Paris jaunt with Beverley West. From kissing strangers on a train to sipping apertifs in the rain, Finding my Way Back to Paris takes you through French streets and museums over a 60-year period. Follow Beverley West s flirting and frank love affairs. Learn how Paris becomes an ambidextrous lover. Learn how to become 21 again. Witness the verbal energy of a city that whispers to you. This memoir, often funny, confirms how we can fall in love with the simple truths of our lives. --John Davis, author of Gigs and The Reservist

About this edition

• Publisher: Duckabush Press
• Publication date: 1991
• ISBN 10: 096295571X
• ISBN 13: 9780962955716
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 63