Noon in Paris, Eight in Chicago by Douglas Cowie

There is also much here of an author on the long slide down from success (Algren) versus another at the peak of her ability. He immerses his readers in the times de Beauvoir and Algren were living in and that is also quite illuminating (especially when it comes to de Beauvoir’s success). I write that knowing the book is a fictionalized recounting of a real relationship, but it’s realistic in that anyone who has ever been torn between work and love can understand what happened to these two people.īeyond the relationships, author Douglas Cowie also does a great job of presenting mid-century Chicago and Paris as well as other destinations visited by the protagonists. But the book isn’t depressing – it’s just realistic. (All of this can be found in their letters.) In his book Cowie dives deep into this relationship (which was pretty much doomed from the start), and explores all of its harsh reality. She loved Nelson Algren however – they passionately loved each other.

The two of them also had a wickedly confusing personal relationship.

The central conflict is that de Beauvoir had a career that was irrevocably tied to Jean-Paul Satre. The fact that the woman is Simone de Beauvoir and the man Nelson Algren and the story is based on truth, well, that just makes it a heckuva lot juicier to read. It’s a classic “she can’t have it all” story for the female protagonist (although children do not play much of a part in this). They meet through a mutual friend, embark on a torrid affair and find that while they continue to be drawn to each other with great fervor, their work is equally important and keeps them apart. When it begins, the woman lives in Paris and is visiting Chicago, the man lives there.

On one level, Noon in Paris, Eight in Chicago is a novel about a long distance romance spanning 17 years that begins in 1947. Noon in Paris, Eight in Chicago is a meticulously crafted and moving piece of work. The novel’s force lies in the carefully shaped sentences and beautiful because unadorned language, from the sensitivity with which Cowie, focalising his narrative in almost equal parts through his protagonists, renders the fine grain, snags, and splinters of love, its illimitable complexities, and its decline. Noon in Paris, Eight in Chicago is tender without ever being mawkish. Human feeling is the basic – which is not to say easily captured – ingredient of this new novel, which works as a satisfying and coherent whole, in no small measure thanks to Cowie’s ability to balance narrative warmth with authorial cool. like Tyler at her best, he avoids descending into sentimentalism’s familiar rhythms, resolutions, and clichés while being unafraid and unapologetic in his renderings – equally raw and incisive – of sentiment. Cowie writes with great economy and assurance, a commanding sense of purpose and narrative drive which in places remind one of the best moments in Anne Tyler.

Noon in Paris, Eight in Chicago by Douglas Cowie