STANDING ON THE parapet of a bridge, in the heart of Paris, a little boy is afraid; his cousin Claude is holding him by the ankles above the murky waters of the Seine. This becomes a backdrop to Denis' memories as a young man of a childhood marked by sadness. Within him, a struggle is taking place between the sheer wild joy of being alive and the despondency of existence. And it is in Paris, a Paris exquisitely etched, that his unspoken passion for Claude gradually unfolds.

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JULIAN GREEN was born of American parents in 1900 in Paris, where he spent most of his life until his death in August 1998. Bilingual, the majority of his sixty- two books, which consisted of novels, essays, plays, as well as the sixteen volumes of his celebrated Journal, were written in French.

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TRANSLATED BY Euan Cameron
Cover illustration by Gastav Klimt
ISBN 1-901285-28-6 • 128pp • £12 / $18