Between Meals: An Appetite for Paris Book

"Lamb larded with anchovies, artichokes on a pedestal of foie gras..." Take a bite of book.

(A)bbott (J)oseph Liebling (1904-1963), we learn, easily knocked back hot sausage, wild boar, lobster and various cheeses w wines and champagne at a meal. If you et as much as AJ, you too would become a battered fatso and drop dead at age 59. This, his last book, is a fuzzy-muzzy compiled of 3 or 4 articles, hence its gooey sense of dislocation.

Decades before the exclamation ejaculations of Tom Wolfe and the tiresome phrase "New Journalism," there was the chewy AJ. In this memoir, AJ - a Francophile - ruminates on Paris pre WW2. Food, wine, sex. He engages when he recalls Yves Mirande, dramatist of boudoir farces whose "Quick! Hide!" hit plays reflect the chaos of Mirande's randy sex life.

AJ's memoir gets a fine intro by James Salter who neglects to mention he was a New Yorker writer who often added fiction to his journalism. Here, AJ ends with a portrait of a favored "business" girl named Angele who had a retrousse nose (well, naturally) and "large eyes with sable pupils" (Uh-huh). She conveniently succumbs to the flu of 1927 after he returns to the US. Stick with him on digestive matters. AJ advises on your sip with fish : beer or vin rose. His writing, at best, has the elasticity and snap of a rubber band.