Finding My Way Back to 1950s Paris

Ever since she was nine, Beverley had wanted to go to Paris. So finally, after college, she did. She bought a one-way ticket and lived there for three and half years. These pages tell of those days in the 1950s when she lived in a garret, studied at the Sorbonne, attended tea dances at the American Club, bought francs from a black marketer named Freddie. To support herself in post-war Paris, she wrote for UNESCO Features and a small news service, and filed top-secret documents for the US Department of Defense. For fun Bev skied in Switzerland and Austria; youth hosteled on the Riviera; dressed up for fashion shows at Schiaparelli and horse races at Autuil. Along the way, she drank long coffees at the Dome, the Select and the Deux Magots; toured the Tabou and other dark, damp caves; and sipped onion soup at the old Les Halles at 3:00 a.m. Meanwhile she hung out with various writers and artists, and of course fell in and out of love several times. Finally, after those three and a half years, she sailed back to the U.S., landed a job as a reporter for the San Francisco Chronicle, then for several more years lived and worked in New York, where she met and married a dashing, martini-loving, New York writer. They had two spirited sons and moved to Bainbridge Island, WA, where Beverley taught ESL. Then, at 70 and solo, with a backpack and a laptop, she began going back to Paris, again and again. Finding My Way Back To 1950s Paris is a lyrical memoir of a adventurous woman and the city that captured her heart.