That Summer in Paris by Morley Callaghan
*That Summer in Paris* by Morley Callaghan is a memoir that reflects on the author's friendships with prominent American expatriate writers, F. Scott Fitzgerald and Ernest Hemingway, during the summer of 1929 in Paris. Through his experiences, Callaghan explores themes of cultural and religious identity, as well as the intricate dynamics of literary relationships. He recounts how his North American upbringing in Toronto shaped his perspective, feeling like an outsider both in his native city and among the expatriates in Paris.
Callaghan highlights the contradictions he observes in Hemingway and Fitzgerald, who, while living in France, maintain a complex relationship with their American identities. The author notes that many expatriates grapple with their religious beliefs, as seen in Hemingway's forced conversion to Catholicism and Fitzgerald's reluctance to enter a church due to his Irish Catholic background. Throughout the memoir, Callaghan reflects on the nature of friendship among writers, suggesting that these relationships are often nuanced and influenced by small, unspoken elements rather than ideological divides. Ultimately, *That Summer in Paris* offers insight into the struggles of identity and belonging faced by writers navigating their creative paths in a foreign cultural landscape.
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Subject Terms
That Summer in Paris by Morley Callaghan
First published: 1963
The Work
That Summer in Paris: Memories of Tangled Friendships with Hemingway, Fitzgerald, and Some Others, by Canadian writer Morley Callaghan, recounts his friendships with F. Scott Fitzgerald and Ernest Hemingway in Paris in 1929. Callaghan attempts to define his cultural and religious identity and to demonstrate how all writers influence one another.
As a young college student and newspaper reporter in Toronto, Callaghan recognizes that his native city is fundamentally British. He is “intensely North American” because of his love for baseball, women, and family. Intellectually and spiritually, Callaghan feels like an alien in Toronto. While working for the Toronto Star, Callaghan meets Ernest Hemingway, who has served as the newspaper’s European correspondent. Hemingway encourages Callaghan to write fiction, and the two men soon meet in Paris, where they become literary associates and boxing partners.
In Paris, Callaghan observes the contradictory behavior of other North American expatriates like Hemingway and Fitzgerald, who never assimilate completely into French society but who do not return to America to write about their own country. Callaghan concludes that North American writers were attracted to Paris because “French writers stayed at home and exiled themselves in their own dreams.” Callaghan resolves “to forge my own vision in secret spiritual isolation in my native city,” Toronto. He compares his predicament to that of James Joyce, whose time in Paris led him to turn deeply into himself and imagine his native Dublin.
Callaghan observes that many expatriates are as ambiguous in their religious beliefs as they are in their cultural identities. He notices that Hemingway, who converts to Catholicism to appease his second wife, genuflects too frequently when he accompanies Callaghan and his wife to Chartres. Callaghan also questions the sincerity of T. S. Eliot’s conversion to Anglican Catholicism. When Callaghan suggests to Fitzgerald that they enter the St. Sulpice Cathedral just to look at the columns, Fitzgerald adamantly refuses, muttering something about his Irish Catholic background. Callaghan also profiles the religion of miracle seekers at Lourdes, of Jews who convert to Catholicism on aesthetic grounds, and of an alcoholic American priest in Europe on furlough from his depressing assignment as a prison chaplain.
In addition to his search for cultural and religious identity, Callaghan tries to define his identity as a writer in his memoir. He concludes that relationships between writers, like any friendships, are determined not by ideological issues, but rather by little things that are sometimes impossible to articulate. Callaghan never understands why Hemingway reacts as he does to their boxing matches, just as he never understands the tension between Hemingway and Fitzgerald.
Bibliography
Conron, Brandon. Morley Callaghan. New York: Twayne, 1966.
Hoar, Victor. Morley Callaghan. Toronto: Copp Clark, 1969.
Morley, Patricia. Morley Callaghan. Toronto: McClelland and Stewart, 1978.
Staines, David, ed. The Callaghan Symposium. Ottawa: University of Ottawa Press, 1981.
Wilson, Edmund. “Morley Callaghan of Toronto.” The New Yorker 26 (November, 1960): 224-237.