April 1940, the young and lovely Sarah Grimes is getting dressed to join New York’s Easter parade with her English mannered fiancé under the envious look of her little sister Emily. As World War II ends, happiness seems eventually to be at hand for the two girls, moving away the grey shadow of their wandering childhood alongside a whimsical and divorced mother. Sarah marries her charming prince while Emily receives a scholarship to study English literature at Barnard.

But Richard Yates does not believe in fairy tales and the golden tomorrows turn out to be relentlessly worth than the frustrations of the past. While Sarah sacrifices her beauty and health to save her sinking wedding, Emily collected lovers and jobs in a frenetic run away from conflict and pain. With his legendary offhand elegance and heartbreaking honesty, Yates lets the lives of Sarah and Emily unfold with remarkable clarity. Richard Yates is undoubtedly a giant of American literature and Easter Parade, a pure master piece.

Easter Parade by Richard Yates, trans. by Aline Azoulay-Pacvon, Pavillon poche.
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Pauline Manford is a superlative New York hostess and do-gooder, organizing her causes and social events with equal efficiency and panache, all while taking care of herself by going to a series of self-help gurus. Her daughter-in-law Lita is a child of the Roaring Twenties, though, and her boredom with her marriage affects all of Pauline’s family, until everything threatens to come crashing down on them.
An enduring classic, Wharton’s tale of the upper crust and its undoing is wittily, masterfully told.

Les New-Yorkaises a novel by Edith Wharton, trans. by Jean Pavans, J’ai Lu
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“I am always drawn back to places where I have lived, the houses and their neighborhoods. For instance, there is a brownstone in the East seventies, where, during the early years of the war, I had my first New York apartment.”

Here’s the brief, though unforgettable, romance between an aspiring writer, Paul, and his upstairs neighbor, Holly Golightly. Holly floats through life; she is unpredictable, promiscuous, and brazen. When she gets the “mean reds,” she jumps into a cab and takes refuge at Tiffany’s, because “nothing bad can ever happen to you there.” With her, Paul will learn the hard way not to give his heart to a wild thing, because “the more you do, the stronger they get. Until they’re strong enough to run into the woods. Or fly into a tree. Then a taller tree. Then the sky. That’s how you’ll end up, (). If you let yourself love a wild thing. You’ll end up looking at the sky.”
As Norman Mailer put it: “I would not have changed two words in Breakfast at Tiffany’s, which will become a small classic.”

Petit-Déjeuner chez Tiffany, a novella by Truman Capote, trans. by Germaine Beaumont, Folio
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“If you really want to hear about it, the first thing you’ll probably want to know is where I was born and what my lousy childhood was like, and how my parents were occupied and all before they had me, and all that David Copperfield kind of crap, but I don’t feel like going into it, if you want to know the truth.”
Holden Caufield narrates a couple of days in his sixteen-year-old life just after he’s been expelled from prep school, and as he wanders adrift in New York. His constant wry observations about what he encounters, from teachers to phonies (the two of course are not mutually exclusive), capture the essence of the eternal teenage experience of alienation.

L’Attrape-coeurs, a novel by JD Salinger, J’ai lu
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Soon after Columbia University art historian Leo Hertzberg bought a painting from Bill, the first piece the young artist ever sold, the two embarked on a lifelong friendship. Along with their respective spouses, Bill and Leo move into the same loft building in Soho. Erica — Leo’s wife and an English professor — and Lucille — Bill’s wife — give birth the same year to two boys. By the time the kids reached the age of four, Bill and Lucille have split, and Bill is now married to Violet, a Ph.D. student specializing on hysteria. The two couples talk insatiably about art and life, celebrating triumphs and weathering tragedy together. When Bill’s son, Mark, a dark and secret boy slips into a sinister New York club scene, the novel turns into a psychological thriller.

Tout ce que j’aimais, a novel by Siri Husvedt, trans. by CHristine Leboeuf, Babel
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