Next in our exclusive 56Paris interview series, we catch up with author John Baxter in Paris.
John knows these streets like the back of his hand – something he brings to life in his memoirs and literary walking tours around the capital.
We asked him for his fascinating insights into life in Paris as an expat, and about his brand-new book.
About the author, John Baxter
John Baxter is an Australian-born author and filmmaker.
For decades, he’s immersed himself in Parisian culture, becoming an expert on its hidden corners and rich history. This love affair with our city is evident in his collection of acclaimed memoirs, which offer a unique perspective on Parisian life.
He also gives guided literary walks around the city, imparting his vast knowledge.
But John’s literary works extend beyond memoirs. He’s also a well-respected film critic and biographer. His biographies delve into the lives of legendary directors such as Stanley Kubrick, George Lucas and Woody Allen.
Some of John’s other bestselling books – translated into many languages – include We'll Always Have Paris and The Most Beautiful Walk in the World: A Pedestrian in Paris.
His latest is about the biggest subject of all – amour!
The love stories of Paris
56Paris: Hello John. We’d love to know about your latest book, Of Love and Paris: Historic, Romantic and Obsessive Liaisons.
John: James Joyce called Paris ‘a lamp for lovers, hung in the wood of the world’ but love is a slippery concept, open to almost infinite definition.
I wanted to show the many varieties of love, as demonstrated in the stories of some famous lovers, and examine why so many of these relationships flourished in Paris, a city no more ‘romantic’ at first glance than Athens or Berlin or Rome.
56Paris: Your subjects range from lesser-known troubadours and courtesans to
famous artists like Salvador Dali. How did you choose which love stories to tell?
John: If there’s a theme to the essays, it’s the message of Shakespeare, that ‘the course of true love n’er did run smooth.’
Many deal with classic passion, such as that of writer Romain Gary for actress Jean Seberg, and actor Charles Boyer for his wife Jean. Both men killed themselves rather than live without their partners.
I also wanted to show how love can transcend differences in class, means or gender; for example, the relationship of Marcel Proust, rich, intellectual and gay, with his unsophisticated and happily married housekeeper Céleste Albaret.
Some stories upset our expectations. Napoléon Bonaparte lived frugally, scorning the imperial trappings to which he was entitled, but allowing his middle-class wife Joséphine, even after they divorced, to spend millions on clothing, jewels and a private zoo.
Other essays look behind the scenes of some famous love stories to reveal hidden turmoil. Simone de Beauvoir remained devoted to Jean-Paul Sartre, who was incapable of love as she knew it, or of fidelity.
John’s connection to the City of Light
56Paris: Is this your first book about Paris?
John: Far from it! In fact, it’s the twelfth. Other titles include Immovable Feast: A Paris Christmas, Chronicles of Old Paris, Paris at the End of the World: The City of Light during the First World War, The Golden Moments of Paris, Five Nights in Paris: After Dark in the City of Light, A Year in Paris, and individual volumes on Montparnasse, Montmartre and St Germain des Prés.
56Paris: Which did you most enjoy writing, and why?
John: Paris at the End of the World gave me a chance to research our family history, since my paternal grandfather fought in the Australian Expeditionary Force and spent time in Paris. Though he never fired a shot, his experience mirrored that of many young Australians, Americans and Britons, who first encountered foreign lands and people while in uniform.
His story and that of Paris dove-tailed perfectly.
Books and the literary world of Paris
56Paris: How did you get to know the city so well?
John: A fascination with rare books and memorabilia of the années folles (roaring 20s) drove me to explore bookshops and markets across the city, and to haunt brocantes (collectibles markets) and flea markets.
There are few better ways to discover the city, since markets take place in districts you wouldn’t normally visit.
56Paris: Tell us about your Literary Walks.
John: While helping direct the Paris Writers’ Workshop for WICE (Womens’ Institute of Continuing Education at the time), I substituted for a lecturer hired to do a literary walk, and found I had the knack.
After a few people asked if I did such walks outside PWW, it became a sideline, as well as inspiring The Most Beautiful Walk in the World, so far my most successful book about Paris.
56Paris: Did your lifelong passion for film incite you to become a writer?
John: It was more the other way around; writing taught me to pay more attention to the structure of film and to language. What began as a way of escaping from reality into a synthetic world gave me a new appreciation of reality.
--------------------with Marina Picasso ----------------------------------------- John's latest work --------------------------------------------- Paris Writers' Salon-------------------
Living and working in Paris as an expat
56Paris: How long have you been a Parisian?
John: I was born in Sydney, Australia, but moved to England in 1969. I often visited Paris then, but didn’t move here permanently until 1989.
56Paris: Do you have a love story of your own set in Paris?
John: The unconventional manner in which I met my French wife Marie-Dominique, and moved to Paris is told in Of Love and Paris.
Briefly, I was living in Los Angeles when the experience of being hypnotized reminded me of our relationship which had ended seven years before. We married a few months later.
56Paris: Where in Paris have you made your home?
John: We live in a building dating from 1760, on rue de l’Odéon, close to the Luxembourg gardens.
56Paris: Does it have historical significance?
John: Between 1921 and 1936, Sylvia Beach, founder of the Shakespeare and Company bookshop and publisher of James Joyce’s Ulysses, lived two floors below us with her partner, fellow bookseller Adrienne Monnier.
During the same period, our apartment was occupied by Australian painter Agnes Goodsir. When the land under our building was part of the Paris pied à terre of the Prince de Condé, uncle of Louis XIV, one of his courtiers gave birth here or nearby to Donatien Alphonse François, later the notorious Marquis de Sade.
The history of the French capital
56Paris: What is your favorite spot in Paris?
John: For some years, we lived on Place Dauphine on the Ile de la Cité, at that time a sleepy backwater, largely unknown to tourists.
We had a nodding acquaintance with next-door-neighbor Yves Montand and got used to the park filling with men in grey uniforms as they shot some epic of the Occupation. Now that the square has been invaded by restaurants, I find some of the same calm in the little park of the Vert Galant, at the point of the island. Once known as the Île aux Juifs, this triangular park, with its trailing willows and the river rushing by just a few meters away was renamed in honor of Henry IV, who, because of his devotion to his mistress Gabrielle d'Estrées, with whom he fathered a number of children, was often tagged a ‘Vert Galant’ – slang for an older man who still enjoys an active love life.
Because of its closeness to the water, the park acquired an association with ritual. Jacques de Molay, Grand Master of the Knights Templar, and his lieutenant, Geoffroy de Charnay, were burnt at the stake here in 1314. Guy Debord, leader of the Lettrist and Situationist groups and formulator of Psychogeography, asked for his ashes to be consigned to the Seine from here.
56Paris: If you could live anywhere in Paris, where would it be?
John: For a writer, there can be few more congenial and appropriate locations than where we now live, though I would not turn down the chance to reside in one of the art deco villas in the 16th district designed by Robert Mallet-Stevens.
The Paris Writers’ Salon
56Paris: What is the Paris Writers’ Salon?
John: During the Covid shut-down, fellow writer Samuèl Lopez-Barrantes and I, began a series of Zoom discussions which we called the Paris Writers’ Salon.
Members joined us online to discuss books by French authors, or with a French theme or setting. The Salon just completed its 13th successful program. Authors discussed so far include Colette, Émile Zola, Patrick Modiano, Simone de Beauvoir, Ernest Hemingway and Louis Aragon.
Samuel and I plan to continue the Salon after the Olympics, widening its scope to include location visits to significant literary sites around Paris.
56Paris: What’ s your favorite story about your time living here in Paris?
John: One of the books I most admire is the 1941 Let Us Now Praise Famous Men: Three Tenant Families by James Agee and photographer Walker Evans.
First editions are rare, and signed copies rarer still, so when one turned up in a New York dealer’s catalogue, I gulped at the price, but paid it anyway.
As customs duty would normally be levied on such an expensive item, I asked the dealer not to declare the value. I still had to go out to Roissy to take delivery, which is when I discovered the dealer had included an invoice inside that gave the real price.
“So this is not just an old book,” the douanier said sternly.
Leafing through it, he stopped at Evans’ stark black-and-white images of tumbledown shacks and faces ravaged by poverty and despair.
“What sort of book is this anyway?” he asked.
I explained that it documented time spent during the great depression with three sharecropper families in the deep South.
Other douaniers joined him as he leafed slowly through the pictures. Afterwards, he replaced the book in its box and pushed it across the counter.
“I could never charge you duty,” he said, “on such a beautiful book.”
Only in Paris…
Making the move to Paris
56Paris: What advice would you give people who are thinking of becoming part time or full-time Parisians?
John: Notwithstanding Emily in Paris, living here can be challenging. Of course, people who really want to live here never ask for advice and, given any, ignore it. Moving to Paris isn’t a re-location; it’s a marriage.
56Paris: What’s next after Of Love and Paris? And where can people buy a copy?
John: Paris Untold, a collection of essays, is published by UK press Quarto. Later this year, Paris Off-Beat Walks is published by Museyon in New York.
Most of my books are available online via Amazon, or from, as they used to say, ‘all better bookshops’ – assuming you can find one.
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