Memoir of a Summer Day on the Contrescarpe – for Walter Cummins Place de la Contrescarpe is a square, a circle really, of cafés – Café de la Contrescarpe, Cafe des Artistes, Café des Chopes, recently renamed Café Delmas – … Continued

My real life—or what I think of as my real life—began in fiction. It was late March 1959. Earlier that month, I had turned fifteen, an occasion I had celebrated by nearly killing myself with a bottle of whiskey. In … Continued