Miller didn't just inhabit Paris he devoured it. Not the Paris of the guidebooks but the City of Light's lurid backways and backwaters the dens of vice where he could slough off the pale cast of American puritanism and embrace the hedonistic facts of life. The Parisian life of Miller was a turbulent quest for new sensations and avenues a roisterous slumming exploration of the soul. This world Miller shared with Brassai one of the greatest photographers of our century. Miller and Brassai's friendship was a recognition of kindred spirits born of mutual admiration for each other's tireless restless fascination with Paris and its inhabitants. In Miller Brassai found his most compelling subject. Using unpublished letters recollected conversations and references to Miller's workand featuring sixteen unforgettable examples of Brassai's photography"Henry Miller: The Paris Years" is an intimate account of a writer's self-discovery seen through the unblinking eye of a master photographer. Brassai delves into Miller's relationships with Anais Nin and Lawrence Durrell as well as his hopelessly tangled though wildly inspiring marriage to June. Brassai remembers Miller's favorite cafes and haunts revives Miller's idols and anathemas and evokes their shared passion for the street life of a Montparnasse and Montmartre captured even during those depression years in a dazzling moment of illumination.
