Trains of Thought: Memories of a Stateless Youth Book

Paris in the 1930s—melancholy, erotic, intensely politicized—provides the poetic beginning for this remarkable autobiography by one of America's most renowned literary scholars. Victor Brombert recaptures the story of his youth in a Proustian reverie—his protective mother, his first ill-fated romantic liaisons, his passionate love of trains—that vividly recalls his privileged upbringing in Paris's 16th arrondissement. With an ineffable combination of humor and tenderness, he recalls the terrifying onset of the Vichy regime, the family's dramatic flight from Nazi-controlled Europe, his wartime participation in American military intelligence at Omaha Beach and the Battle of the Bulge, and his eventual discovery of his scholarly vocation. Riveting yet poignant, shimmering yet tragic, Trains of Thought is a virtuosic accomplishment, a coming-of-age story that is likely to become a classic account of memory and experience. 20 b/w photographs.Read More