Peaceful days in Clichy

“Miller is a gush of prose, a cataract, a volcano, a torrent, an earthquake [...]” — Norman Mailer

In Peaceful Days in Clichy , we return to 1930s Paris, the Paris of Tropic of Cancer , this time to experience the wanderings of Joey, Henry Miller's alter ego. With little money in his pocket and eagerly enjoying the sexual freedom that exists in France, Joey celebrates the city's bohemian lifestyle in its famous cafés and brothels.

In this book, using the direct and explicit language that made him famous, Miller drew inspiration from his adventures at the Club Melody brothel, his wanderings through the Parisian suburb of Clichy, his volatile stories of love and sex, and the early years of his friendship with writer Alfred Perles. In a fragmentary novella that can be read as several short narratives within a larger one, he interweaves two of Joey's accounts, told in a stream of consciousness.

At once erotic and contemplative, Peaceful Days in Clichy is a scrapbook of the time when Henry Miller was a rising American writer living in pre-World War II Europe, a period that was decisive for his life and work.

“When I think back to this time we lived together in Clichy, it feels like a season in paradise. There was only one real problem, and that was food. All the other ills were imaginary. I would tell him this from time to time when he complained about being a slave. He said I was an incurable optimist, but it wasn't optimism; it was the profound realization that even when the world was busy digging its own grave, there was still time to enjoy life, to be joyful, carefree, to work or not to work.”