I am reading Left Bank by Agnès Poirier, which is about artistic/intellectual/political/sexual goings-on in the Quartier Latin during and after World War II. My attention was caught by a passage concerning the arrival of the American-Canadian writer Saul Bellow in Paris in 1948. He chose to live with his wife and child on the bourgeois Right Bank (later renting a small apartment for assignations on the Left Bank), in an ornate apartment at 24 rue Marbeuf (8th Arrondissement):
"Saul had brought a new Remington portable typewriter in his luggage, but the French landlady (married to a British car racer) demanded it as a gift."
Who was the driver?
The book is rather good, mostly, in my opinion. I have not quite finished it yet but so far there is no mention of another motor racing connection: there are many references to Juliette Gréco, who fell off the perch recently, but none so far to one of her lovers, Jean-Pierre Wimille. It was by no means an exclusive club, but he was undoubtedly among the most important to her. She was pregnant with his child when he was killed, but miscarried. I shall return and do a Mea culpa if Wimille appears in the pages I have not yet read.
Edited by P.Dron, 06 October 2020 - 13:11.
