Gallix - Well Never Have Paris

WELL
NEVER
HAVE
PARIS

WELL
NEVER
HAVE
PARIS

Published by Repeater Books

An imprint of Watkins Media Ltd

Unit 11Shepperton House
89-93 Shepperton Road

London

N1 3DF

United Kingdom

www.repeaterbooks.com

A Repeater Books paperback original 2019
1

Copyright Repeater Books 2019

Cover design: Francesca Corsini

Typography and typesetting: Frederik Jehle
Typefaces: Meriden LT Std, Libre Baskerville

ISBN: 9781912248384

Ebook ISBN: 9781912248391

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publishers.

This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, re-sold, hired out or otherwise circulated without the publishers prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

Printed and bound in the United Kingdom by TJ International Ltd

To my father, Franois Gallix an inveterate Parisian,
forever reading or scribbling away in cafs.

To my son, William Gallix, who was born in Paris. The
light of my city.

To my mother, Carole Jessop, ne Wanless (1942-2017),
a Londoner who once resided in Paris. I miss you so much.

CONTENTS

Introduction
Andrew Gallix

Even As We Plunged Down the Hill
Max Porter

French Exchanges
Chris Power

The Things I Dont Remember
Owen Booth

Always Fourteen
Rosalind Jana

Free Man in Paris
Jennifer Hodgson

Laisse Tomber
S.J. Fowler

Paris Doesnt Belong to Us
Greg Gerke

Every Story of Paris is also a Story of Disillusion
Jonathan Gibbs

The Au Pair
Emily S. Cooper

French Lessons
Heidi James

Some Standard Paradise
Nathan Dragon

Parc des Princes
Wendy Erksine

Very Little Romance and Very Little Dialogue
Ashton Politanoff

Master Framer
Kathryn Scanlan

To Disturb So Many Charms
Utahna Faith

To Sing
Tristan Foster

Catacombs
Sophie Mackintosh

Pilgrimage
Tomo Hill

Marlene or Number 16
Yelena Moskovich

Yulia
Donari Braxton

Wear the Lace
Susanna Crossman

The Blues, the Yellow Sheets
Christiana Spens

Living Without
Gavin James Bower

The Hanged Man
Joanna Walsh

Of Pre Lachaise, On Business
Eley Williams

Paris: A Manifesto in Twenty Arrondissements
Julian Hanna

Paris Montage: Coincidence is the Mystery of the Metropolis; Montage Crystallizes that Chaos
Richard Skinner

Paris at 24 Frames a Second
Richard Kovitch

The Past is a Foreign City
David Collard

Waiting for Godard
Jeremy Allen

Paris Belongs to Us
Elsa Court

After Agns
Niven Govinden

In Search of the Grinning Cats
Adam Scovell

Hulot sur la jete
C.D. Rose

Props
Laura Waddell

Music For French Films
Nicholas Royle

Paris, You and Me
Gerard Evans

Flogging a Dead Clothes Horse
Thom Cuell

Paris Does Not Exist
Stewart Home

City Not Paris
Anna Aslanyan

Manna in Mid-Wilderness
Natalie Ferris

Central Committee
Owen Hatherley

No Baudelaires in Babylon
Tom Bradley

Waiting For Nothing to Happen
Andrew Gallix

Donut
Will Ashon

What Was His Name?
John Holten

The Irish Genius
Gerry Feehily

Paris Syndrome
Dylan Trigg

Siren Orgasms: Leftovers From an Unfinished Novel
Fernando Sdrigotti

The Arraignment of Paris
Stuart Walton

Stalingrad
Will Wiles

Paris Perdu
Tom McCarthy

a mnemopolis, a necropole !
Andrew Robert Hodgson

Ten Fragments of an Idea of Paris Already Imagined by You
Lee Rourke

The Total City
Will Self interviewed by Jo Mortimer

Feeling in Neon
Cal Revely-Calder

Terminus Nord
Adam Roberts

Poisson Soluble
Lauren Elkin

Ghosting
Susan Tomaselli

An Exhausting Attempt at Finding a Place in Paris
Steve Finbow

At a Remove
Cody Delistraty

The Private Life of Quasimodo
H.P. Tinker

Three Pear-Shaped Pieces
Russell Persson

Mirabeau Passing
David Hayden

Flowing, Slow, Violent A Fantasy
Daniela Cascella

Peacock Pie in Paris
Adrian Grafe

Dreams of the Dead - IX
Alex Pheby

Defunge
Richard Marshall

Not-Beckett
Toby Litt

Paris, Isidore Isou, and Me
Andrew Hussey

Le Palace
Nicholas Rombes

Petite vilaine
Susana Medina

Existentialism is Gay
Isabel Waidner

The Identity of Indiscernibles
Nicholas Blincoe

The Parting Sea
Evan Lavender-Smith

Celestevilles Burning: A Work in Regress
Andrew Gallix

The Map Rather Than the Territory
Jeffrey Zuckerman

Still Paris
Sam Jordison

The House of George
Paul Ewen

Anchovies
Brian Dillon

Belfast to Paris
Robert McLiam Wilson

Missing Paris
Rob Doyle

When I look at the city of Paris I long to wrap my legs around it.

Anne Carson, Short Talk on Hedonism, Short Talks, 1992

Introduction

Andrew Gallix

In February 1993, the Times Literary Supplement devoted a special issue to France. Articles on all things Gallic, from Louis XVI to Roland Barthes, were announced on the cover, illustrated by a black-and-white shot of a young woman on the banks of the Seine. It was taken surreptitiously by Robert Doisneau, as part of a series for Paris Match documenting the heatwave of 1948. The young woman is sitting on the cobblestones of the le de la Cit, a typewriter balanced on her lap. With her stylish sunglasses, short skirt and bare feet, she seems to epitomise Left Bank bohemian chic. In fact, she turns out to be English author Emma Smith, hard at work on her second novel.

Fast-forward to May 1968, and one of the most iconic images of les vnements, captured by Jean-Pierre Rey for Life magazine. You can just about make out an elderly couple surveying the march of History from the fifth-floor balcony of a typical Haussmannian building. Below, on Place Edmond-Rostand, a tidal wave of students. Another young woman, perched on a friends shoulders, rises above the fray, brandishing the Vietcong flag. Her attitude is reminiscent of the equestrian sculpture of Joan of Arc that stands on Place des Pyramides, although her steed is almost completely obscured.

A few years ago, as I was having a drink with Christiana Spens in Montmartre, a middle-aged American couple alighted at the next table. After a while, the woman, who kept looking over, plucked up enough courage to ask Christiana not in so many words, but through a series of gestures if she could take her picture. I was tickled by the idea that they would now go home, to deepest Wyoming or wherever, with their faith in glamorous Parisian women firmly reaffirmed. What they say is all true, they would tell them back home, producing the likeness of a British author as incontrovertible evidence.