Après-Midi Recap

JAZZ NOIR: How Jake Lamar mixed his love of music and hard-boiled crime fiction to write VIPER’S DREAM

Jake Lamar held captive a packed room of expatriates to hear about his experience as a writer in Paris for the past 31 years…how he came to love reading, writing and living in France. The audience had lots of interesting questions for him about his writing methodology, his interest in jazz and even his experience as a teacher in French universities.

Jake is a recipient of the Lyndhurst Prize (for his first book, Bourgeois Blues), a prestigious Centre National du Livre grant (for his novel Postérité), France’s Grand Prize for best foreign thriller (for his novel The Last Integrationist), and a Beaumarchais fellowship for his play Brothers in Exile. He is currently working on a memoir about his life in Paris.

Jake grew up in the Bronx, New York. After graduating from Harvard University, he spent six years writing for Time magazine. He has lived in Paris since 1993 and teaches creative writing at one of France’s top universities, Sciences Po. He is the author of a memoir, seven novels, numerous essays, reviews and short stories, and a play. His most recent work, Viper’s Dream, is both a crime novel and an audio drama, set in the jazz world of Harlem between 1936 and 1961. His books include Viper’s Dream (US), Viper’s Dream (UK), Ghosts of Saint-Michel, Rendezvous Eighteenth, If 6 were 9, Close to the Bone, The Last Integrationist and Bourgeois Blues.

Website

Watch the video of the event.