Being Geniuses Together: Ghostwriting and the Uncanny of Robert McAlmon’s and Kay Boyle’s (Out of) Joint Autobiography
Kay Boyle’s supplementary edition (1968) of Robert McAlmon’s Being Geniuses Together (1938) is a self-deconstructive survey of the expatriate community of English and American writers and artists in Paris in the 1920s. Boyle’s version prompts questions about originality and autobiographical truth th...
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European Association for American Studies
2017-08-01
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| Series: | European Journal of American Studies |
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| Online Access: | https://journals.openedition.org/ejas/12051 |
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| author | Anna Linzie |
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| author_sort | Anna Linzie |
| collection | DOAJ |
| description | Kay Boyle’s supplementary edition (1968) of Robert McAlmon’s Being Geniuses Together (1938) is a self-deconstructive survey of the expatriate community of English and American writers and artists in Paris in the 1920s. Boyle’s version prompts questions about originality and autobiographical truth through the way in which her chapters are alternated with McAlmon’s chapters in a post-mortem “dialogue” or ghostwriting experiment and frequently seem to bracket or undermine his version of the “same” story. I am interested in the way in which self-writing and autobiography in general, and in particular experimental forms of collaborative, queer, or “mock” autobiography, have been used to conjure up supposedly True Stories of the Lost Generation and literary Modernism. Few crowds are as famous, as notorious, as surrounded by myth, as extensively written about in various more or less autobiographical texts, as the “in” crowd of writers, artists, critics and publishers in Paris in the 1920s. The story of Modernism, often a form of contemporary self-definition, has been told and retold and contested in a chorus of autobiographical and biographical discourses competing for the right to present the True Story. In my article, I explore how McAlmon and Boyle present their shared experiences of being American writers in exile in Europe in ways which are sometimes similar and sometimes widely divergent. |
| format | Article |
| id | doaj-art-2bfe4948dcd64392862566bb2c0109e9 |
| institution | Kabale University |
| issn | 1991-9336 |
| language | English |
| publishDate | 2017-08-01 |
| publisher | European Association for American Studies |
| record_format | Article |
| series | European Journal of American Studies |
| spelling | doaj-art-2bfe4948dcd64392862566bb2c0109e92025-01-06T09:09:34ZengEuropean Association for American StudiesEuropean Journal of American Studies1991-93362017-08-0112210.4000/ejas.12051Being Geniuses Together: Ghostwriting and the Uncanny of Robert McAlmon’s and Kay Boyle’s (Out of) Joint AutobiographyAnna LinzieKay Boyle’s supplementary edition (1968) of Robert McAlmon’s Being Geniuses Together (1938) is a self-deconstructive survey of the expatriate community of English and American writers and artists in Paris in the 1920s. Boyle’s version prompts questions about originality and autobiographical truth through the way in which her chapters are alternated with McAlmon’s chapters in a post-mortem “dialogue” or ghostwriting experiment and frequently seem to bracket or undermine his version of the “same” story. I am interested in the way in which self-writing and autobiography in general, and in particular experimental forms of collaborative, queer, or “mock” autobiography, have been used to conjure up supposedly True Stories of the Lost Generation and literary Modernism. Few crowds are as famous, as notorious, as surrounded by myth, as extensively written about in various more or less autobiographical texts, as the “in” crowd of writers, artists, critics and publishers in Paris in the 1920s. The story of Modernism, often a form of contemporary self-definition, has been told and retold and contested in a chorus of autobiographical and biographical discourses competing for the right to present the True Story. In my article, I explore how McAlmon and Boyle present their shared experiences of being American writers in exile in Europe in ways which are sometimes similar and sometimes widely divergent.https://journals.openedition.org/ejas/12051modernismautobiographyKay BoyleRobert McAlmonghostwritingcollaborative autobiography |
| spellingShingle | Anna Linzie Being Geniuses Together: Ghostwriting and the Uncanny of Robert McAlmon’s and Kay Boyle’s (Out of) Joint Autobiography European Journal of American Studies modernism autobiography Kay Boyle Robert McAlmon ghostwriting collaborative autobiography |
| title | Being Geniuses Together: Ghostwriting and the Uncanny of Robert McAlmon’s and Kay Boyle’s (Out of) Joint Autobiography |
| title_full | Being Geniuses Together: Ghostwriting and the Uncanny of Robert McAlmon’s and Kay Boyle’s (Out of) Joint Autobiography |
| title_fullStr | Being Geniuses Together: Ghostwriting and the Uncanny of Robert McAlmon’s and Kay Boyle’s (Out of) Joint Autobiography |
| title_full_unstemmed | Being Geniuses Together: Ghostwriting and the Uncanny of Robert McAlmon’s and Kay Boyle’s (Out of) Joint Autobiography |
| title_short | Being Geniuses Together: Ghostwriting and the Uncanny of Robert McAlmon’s and Kay Boyle’s (Out of) Joint Autobiography |
| title_sort | being geniuses together ghostwriting and the uncanny of robert mcalmon s and kay boyle s out of joint autobiography |
| topic | modernism autobiography Kay Boyle Robert McAlmon ghostwriting collaborative autobiography |
| url | https://journals.openedition.org/ejas/12051 |
| work_keys_str_mv | AT annalinzie beinggeniusestogetherghostwritingandtheuncannyofrobertmcalmonsandkayboylesoutofjointautobiography |